Children of the Blue
by Captain Campion
Summary: A follow up to Blue Gender series...Marlene & Yuji's peaceful life in South America is shattered when their son is kidnapped. Story is complete from start to finish. Reviews & comments greatly appreciated.
1. 1 Paradise

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

1. Paradise

__

Paradise.

How many times had Marlene told herself that? 

Just about every day, she figured. Just about every day now for more than five years. 

Five years of living in the jungle basin surrounded by dense rain forest and crisscrossing streams. Five years of planting crops, hunting game, fishing, building huts and rebuilding them after the wind blew them down.

Five years of living off the land.

Five years of living in peace.

She leaned over by the stream and let the cool crisp water flow into the ceramic container. Far overhead a colorful bird sang as it swept through the dense treetops.

Marlene Angel had long since traded in her soldier's uniform for slacks and shirts made of cloth; traded in her rifle for water jars; her tactical strike squad for a family.

_Paradise._

The container filled quickly and Marlene stood.

A familiar hand fell gently on her shoulder.

"You don't really need water again already, do you?"

Yuji's was being coy—he knew what she was up to.

"Why sure I do—"

"You just know that your son is down here somewhere, running around. Always the mother hen, aren't you?"

She smiled and turned to face him.

"Well…I'm just being careful. You know, there are still some blue around…out there…somewhere…"

Yuji wasn't buying it. 

The sound of running footsteps came crashing through the brush along the stream bank--the sound of footsteps and childish giggles: the giggles of a boy just a few weeks shy of his fifth birthday.

"Takashi!" She yelled happily as she looked at the reflection of her blonde hair and blue eyes on the boy and the reflection of his father's stocky build and fleet reflexes. 

The boy raised a finger to his lips asking them to 'shhh' then slipped behind a tree.

A moment later and another set of footsteps came running along the bank. These steps much heavier—the steps of a teenager about to turn into a young man. 

It was Bo—the dark haired, slender son of Chief Fuentes, the village's founder and leader. The man who had accepted Yuji and Marlene's group of into their community so long ago—yet it felt like yesterday.

"Where'd he go? Where'd he go?" Bo asked with a grin.

Bo had become a sort of big brother to their son, Takashi. He was sort of a big brother to all the younger children of the village. And he was a symbol of the future for all of them.

Marlene shrugged.

Yuji teased: "He grew wings and flew away."

Takashi stood up: "I didn't fly away, daddy…oops."

Bo tagged Takashi on his shoulder. They all laughed.

_Paradise_

***

The bell at the center of the village let out series of slow rings as Yuji, Marlene, and the two boys strolled into the community. The water jug had made its way from Marlene's hands into Bo's—the young man was quite insistent.

"Visitors," Marlene commented. 

Takashi chimed in, repeating what they had taught him: "Friendly visitors, daddy. But if it rings fast…"

"…then run fast," Yuji finished.

"Bo won't run," Takashi pointed out.

"Yuji might run now, right Yuji?" Marlene said in a tone that suggested they all knew why the bell was ringing.

Yuji rolled his eyes.

Marlene told him: "More people have come to see the savior!"

"Pibgrims?" Takashi muttered.

Bo corrected him: "Pilgrims."

The family and Bo arrived at the center of the village. Sure enough, a caravan of visitors was gathered there conversing with Chief Fuentes. The visitors were riding pack mules loaded with their own gear and, most certainly, gifts of tribute for the village where the famous Yuji Kaido lived.

Yuji often wondered how he had become so famous in world without telephones; without the world wide web; without even cable t.v. Heck, they didn't even know what was out in that world—only little glimpses and stories of what lay beyond the protective mountains.

However, the pilgrims still came. Sometimes two groups a week, sometimes none for three months. It all depended on how fast the story was spreading and how eager the listeners to learn the truth.

There were eight pilgrims. An eclectic group of various races and genders and ages. 

Chief Fuentes pointed toward Yuji as he approached and all the members of the caravan rushed forward.

"Are you really Yuji Kaido?"

"May I touch your hand?"

"Where is the cavern of the Earth?"  
"Did you speak to God?"

Yuji held a both hands up and smiled as politely as he could then spoke.

"I am Yuji Kaido. I don't know what stories you've heard, but I'm just a guy trying to live a normal life. It is true that I was a sleeper—I have the b-cells in my body but that makes me no different from you. 

"I experienced something…incredible. And the result was that nature was put back into balance. I can't explain it—not the way you want me to, I'm sorry. I still don't understand it all—"

"Where's the cavern of the Earth?"

"Can we see the shining light?"

"We have come so far; please tell us how to live…"

The words and pleas became cross talk.

Bo stepped in. He raised his voice like a carnival conductor.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I can take you to the cavern of the Earth. The shining light that you have heard of has long since faded, its purpose complete. But I can take you there and maybe you can find the answers you seek for yourself."

Bo handed the water jug to Marlene who mouthed the word 'thank you' to the young man. Bo then led the pilgrims away from the village toward that mammoth passage in the cliff side.

"Now that's a good kid," Marlene told Yuji.

"I like him," Chief Fuentes interjected. 

Other members of the village started to come out to see what the caravan had brought.

Fuentes continued: "And we all like these caravans, too. What will it be this time? Special grains from up north? Maybe coffee beans or hand-made bows to spear our dinner? Smoked meats or even cocoa?

"These pilgrims—as silly as they may seem to you—are the beginnings of the same types of trade routes that thousands of years ago turned primitive man into civilizations."

The Chief was always looking out for the good of the village. That's why they all trusted him with their lives and loved him like a grandfather.

Another voice became a part of the conversation.

"Let's hope they brought some penicillin."

The voice belonged to an older gentlemen with two tufts of gray hair on either side of an otherwise balding scalp. 

His name was Dr. Gamble and he had found his way to the village little more than a year prior. He had brought with him old country doctor charm but little in the way of medicine—that was one part of paradise that needed work.

Fuentes said to the doctor: "I don't think a hospital medicine cabinet is going to fall into our laps, Charles."

Takashi ran over and jumped into Gamble's arms. The doctor raised the boy high and held him. Takashi hadn't forgotten how the good doctor had made a fair number of his 'booboos' better.

"That, I must admit, is true," Gamble replied. "But we keep hearing of more and more villages and outposts out there, across South America. Maybe one of them has got a good chemist working for them."

Takashi squirmed and Charles Gamble let the boy hop to the ground.

"Takashi, go get cleaned up for dinner."

"Oh, Mom…"

"Come on now, do what mom says," Yuji supported his 'wife'.

The group watched the boy go. The village was well contained and everyone knew one another—sending the nearly five years old Takashi across the community by himself was no more dangerous then sending him from one end of their house to another. Trust and security were a part of paradise.

"Speaking of other groups," Fuentes said. "I raised Doran's group on Devil's Island earlier today."

The village had one high-powered radio transmitter. The antenna was high up on one of the mountain walls. The unit was rarely used because battery power was a precious commodity. Still, they kept in contact with four other communities in this fashion, sharing weather information, trading survival tips, and sharing observations or news.

Just as importantly, they kept an eye out for any Blue. 

Marlene had spoken the truth by the stream—there were still Blue around although none had ever visited the village. Most of the creatures, or so it seemed, had become solitary predators. 

Yet the truth was that Takashi had never seen a Blue in his five years of life and the village itself hadn't seen one since before Yuji and Marlene's team had descended upon them so long ago.

__

Paradise.

Fuentes continued relaying his conversation.

"Doran says some of his guys heard air ships—he said they sounded like transports to him. Now I don't now much about anything like that. But I figured maybe you'd know."

Fuentes was a natural earther. He had seen Yuji's air ships when they had gone to strip them to their frames (taking every ounce of equipment and metal they could carry). But other than that he had no clue what they were or what they did.

"Air ships?" Marlene was surprised.

"More visitors from Second Earth?" Gamble suggested.

Yuji shook his head and told him: "From everything we heard, what's left of Second Earth is empty hulks floating in orbit."

Marlene echoed: "It was abandoned when the military ship was destroyed. Any survivors from up there have long since resettled on the surface."

Fuentes considered and told them: "Maybe people like you. Maybe they didn't strip their ships but kept them."

Dr. Gamble concluded: "Doesn't sound like anything to worry about to me."

"Of course not," Fuentes chided. "You're just hoping they bring you an x-ray machine, right?"

"I'm going to get Takashi ready for supper," Marlene interrupted. "I'll meet you back here in a bit," she kissed Yuji on the cheek, leaving him to discuss the mysterious air ships to his heart's content. Her heart, meanwhile, was with her boy.

***

"And there I be, staring at this hideous abomination as it bore down on me," William Junker gazed around at his audience of nine

and ten year olds for effect. 

The campfire was lit even though it wasn't yet dark because the campfire was as much of the story as the words that came from the teller's lips.

Marlene, still on her way to meet her son, stopped and looked at the veteran soldier as he told yet another tale. Soldiers like Captain William Junker—old ones—were hard to find.

With no more armored shrikes to pilot or ships to fly the Captain was left to his war stories; and he had earned the right to them.

"I checked my ammo—only four bullets left; not nearly enough to fell a 'Double Boat' blue. Not enough to even cause a scratch."

***

Marlene moved on until she came to the hut their family shared—a combination of sheet metal from the transports, tent stakes and ropes, and animal hides. 

She slipped into the darkness of the shelter—no lamp burned.

"Takashi?"

Movement from her right. She heard the noise of a muffled voice.

A figure stepped forward. 

She saw only a little before the pain rushed through her body. She saw a scar; she her son being held with a hand over his mouth; then she saw the bright electric flicker of a stun gun.

Marlene Angel fell over, her body twitching as it lost consciousness. 

***

Dr. Gamble bid his companions a quick goodbye and headed across the village. This left the Chief and Yuji alone in the open space at the center of the collective.

They spoke about the crop cycle for the coming spring; they spoke about the value of the caravans and the possibility of making a longer journey to visit some of the other communities; they spoke of many things.

They spoke without knowing that a finger was softly touching a trigger while a crosshair…fell…silently…on Yuji's…neck.

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

2. Ambush

Marlene: "Yuji…where's Takashi? Why did they attack us? Who were they? Get up Yuji. Yuji? Yuji!"


	2. 2 Ambush

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

2. Ambush

"I think maybe it's time to start seeing what is out there," Yuji said to Fuentes. 

"After all," he continued. "Dr. Gamble is right—it'd be nice to have some medical supplies. We've seen too many die too young from illness that might've been cured with just a little—"

Fuentes listened to Yuji's words and considered them until the young father's eyes grew glazed and he wobbled where he stood.

Fuentes waited for him to speak again.

"Yuji? Are you okay?"

Yuji Kaido began to fall. The older Chief Fuentes reached out and tried to catch him, but only succeeded in slowing the man's fall to the ground.

Fuentes looked closer as his friend wretched once then shut his eyes. The Chief saw something sticking out from Yuji's neck. It took him a second too long to realize what he was seeing.

Some sort of tiny, sharp projectile. A dart.

"Doctor! Doctor Gamble!" He yelled but he stood not to get medical help but to ring the bell—fast.

Screams came from the far side of the village. Then crashes. Then loud bangs and snaps.

Fuentes had not heard the sound of gunfire away from the practice range in years. Now he heard it descending on his peaceful village and he knew—the dart told him—that it was not the Blue attacking.

A tent on the far side of the center of town exploded into smoke. An ominous shadow pushed through that smoke and rolled into view.

He knew what it was only because he had seen the war machines before, when Yuji and Marlene and the others had first come to his village. They were scary when piloted by allies. Now they were bone chilling as they roared into his home as attackers.

He saw the first one, then another on its flank. They were firing but at what he didn't know. Fuentes didn't think the aggressors knew either. There were so many targets. 

The people of the village scattered and ran. Parents grabbed children and raced away from the lumbering red and white hulks.

Fuentes rang the bell. It was all he knew to do.

Somehow the noise—despite the commotion and gunfire—reached the pilot of the first mecha. The machine leveled its weapon at the chief. 

Fuentes was frozen. He had never been so afraid. Even the nastiest of the Blue seemed mild in comparison to this. It was just not natural. It seemed to be a creature spawned from some nightmare underworld.

The Chief of the village found himself suddenly falling away from the warning bell, the rope slipping out of his hands so fast that it caused a brush burn on his palms.

He fell over backwards as the bell itself burst into lethal shrapnel.

Fuentes realized why he was still alive. William Junker—that old soldier with a story for every campfire—had tackled him just in time to take them both out of the deadly blast radius of the shattered alarm.

"Wha…What is going on?"  
Junker told him the obvious: "We're under attack, Chief."

They both saw the new group of shadows approaching through the smoke on the far side of the village. 

They were dressed in red and white body armor to match their armored shrikes. They carried a variety of weapons from handguns to heavy assault rifles.

They fired.

Fuentes watched as the invaders cut down old man Wallace as he stumbled out of his hut. He watched as their rounds ignited the pile of tribute that had been deposited by the caravan. He watched as the attackers started to search homes one by one; muzzle flashes lit dark doorways as more targets were found.

"Come on, Chief, we need to hall ass," Junker lifted his revered leader to his feet and moved them away. The two stopped near Yuji's prone body.

"Dead?" Junker asked.

Fuentes gasped then answered: "I, I don't know."

Junker kneeled and placed a hand on Yuji's throat searching for a pulse. The gunfire continued behind them but new targets had pulled the shrikes in another direction. The infantry still closed in.

"No, he's breathing," the combat veteran said. "I think we gotta leave him, though. I can't carry you both."

But it seemed too late. Two of the attacking troopers had made it to within shooting distance. A round twanged over Junker's head and he instinctively hit the deck covering the Chief with his body and his own head with his hands.

Junker saw their enemy taking better aim. 

***

Marlene's head swirled. Her sense returned…one…at…a…time.

She rose to one knee and placed a hand on her head. Her long blond hair fell down around her.

"What happened?"

Her memory started to churn out images. The first one was clear and cold: a tall man with a scar. A tall man with a scar with a hand over her son's mouth.

"Oh…my…God," she looked around their home. Overturned beds and storage bins. No sign of her son.

She tried to stand but she lost her balance and fell once more. She could still feel the tingle of the massive electric shock. 

She saw her son's blue eyes behind that dirty hand.

She forced herself to stand.

***

The Captain couldn't help but think_ 'after all those years of fighting Blue I'm going to die at the hands of a human…how ironic.'_

Their fate was interrupted as a figure emerged from between two of the still-standing homes and smashed into the side of one of the raiders, knocking him over.

The second one swung his gun around on their assailant and fired, but the newcomer managed to knock the rifle upwards, sending the round harmlessly into the air.

Fuentes and Junker looked closely. 

It was Bo. Bo had saved their life. Bo, Fuentes' only child.

"No! Bo, no!" The Chief cried out. 

Junker got to his feet and ran toward the scene as Bo wrestled with one of the soldiers. 

The first one, however, was staggering to his feet. His rifle was still on the ground so the scoundrel pulled a combat knife from his thigh rig. 

Captain Junker was too slow. The knife found Bo's back, right in the kidney area. The teenager froze, a scream locked inside his lips. Then he fell to the ground with blood starting to poor from the gaping wound.

The first soldier, the one with the knife, turned too late to see Junker. The veteran raised his leg and kicked the man square in his chest, sending him tumbling backwards.

Junker ignored the second attacker in favor of the rifle that lay unused on the ground. He grabbed it and turned as the still-standing bandit raised his own rifle.

The bullets flew from both weapons. The combatants faced each other for a long moment…then the attacker fell to the ground, a bullet deeply lodged in his throat.

Junker paused to make sure he had not been hit. When he was confident he was in one piece he turned his attention to the remaining trooper. However, that man had turned tail and ran.

Fuentes was suddenly beside the Captain then crouched over his boy. 

Bo gasped for air but blood filled his mouth. His eyes were full of shock. Junker had seen it on the battlefield so many times; the realization in a dying man's eyes that yes, he had been mortally wounded. That yes, he was going to be one of the men who weren't going home.

Fuentes sobbed and clutched the dying body while Junker scanned his surroundings.

He could hear the armored shrikes moving: their wheels offering a mechanical whirl. He had not heard that sound in many years, but it was a sound no soldier from Second Earth would ever forget.

Junker took some small satisfaction in that sound because he could tell that the mechs were moving off, returning in the direction they had come. The gunfire changed from continual bursts to isolated rat-tat-tats.

The soldier moved away from Fuentes to get a better look. He walked quickly to the edge of the village on the top of the slope that looked down upon the main road through the valley. Their attackers may have come out of the brush but they were leaving by road.

Junker took cover behind a small boulder as the attacker's rear guard launched a volley of shots at him. Still, they could not suppress him enough to keep him from seeing what they were doing.

The armored shrikes were boarding a carrier truck, but that's not what held his eyes. It was the escort vehicle that grabbed his eyes. 

The vehicle into which a tall man was forcibly pushing Takashi Kaido.

"Takashi!" Junker yelled and stood. 

There was an explosion as a tossed grenade landed on the slope ahead of Captain Junker. The concussion forced him pin wheeling to the ground. When he finally found his feet again the only thing left on the access road was a cloud of dust where the vehicles had once stood.

***

Marlene staggered across her village. She was still quivering from the bolt of electricity that had been sent down her spine. 

Around her were the ruins of her paradise. Burning tents, smashed crates of food, and even a few bodies, bodies of people she had laughed with, cried with, danced with, and ate with for five years. People she cared about. People she loved.

She staggered to the center of town.

"Yuji!" She cried as loud as she could but it was barely enough to rise above the mournful wails of her fellow villagers.

She saw Chief Fuentes clutching the dead body of his son; she saw Captain Junker, carrying the rifle of one of their attackers, limping toward the Chief. She saw Dr. Gamble kneeling on the ground next to…next to…

"Yuji? Yuji!"

Marlene ran forward, almost tumbling for her legs were not yet ready for full speed.

Dr. Gamble turned to face her and held a hand up. He was trying to tell her something.

"Yuji! Get up, Yuji! They took Takashi! Yuji?"

She told him to get up as if the word would will him to rise. But there he lay, motionless, his eyes shut.

"Doctor…Charles…is…Yuji..?"

"No," Dr. Gamble reported bluntly. "He got hit with some sort of dart in the neck."

"Oh thank God," Marlene said. 

"Marlene," Gamble stopped her. "There was some sort of poison on this dart. Make no mistake, he is dying. And there's nothing I can do about it."

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

3. Hell Hath No Fury

Marlene: "They took it all away from me…they took away my paradise…I didn't want this…they did this…and now they're going to find out…they're going to find out what hell is like. I'm going to show them."


	3. 3 Hell Hath No Fury

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

3. Hell Hath No Fury

Marlene and Junker turned to face the newcomer while Dr. Gamble paid him no mind—he was busy examining Yuji, who was breathing softly. Too softly.

Gunther Gerhardt filled the entryway. He had big, broad shoulders and muscular biceps. 

He was one of the infantrymen who had come to Earth with Yuji and Marlene some five years earlier. He had come with them searching for answers and had found a home. Now that home was in ruins.

The dying flames and new campfires lighted his back: night had fallen.

"No sign of any of 'dem," Gunther said as he cradled a compact assault weapon. "Their tracks lead off down da road, just like you said, Cap'."

They did not reply so Gunther turned and left.

Dr. Gamble stood straight. 

Marlene waited to hear the news. He saw that she was waiting in anticipation and he told her the truth: "I can't give you a diagnosis or prognosis. Nothing exact, that is. But there's a poison in him. He's running a fever and his white blood cell count is up."

Marlene knew that Gamble's hands were tied. He had only the most rudimentary medical supplies: a microscope, some syringes and basic pain medications. 

The villagers had, over time, developed home grown treatments from the treasure chest of the rain forest, but without high-powered chemistry equipment and stocked laboratories they could not take full advantage of the plethora of natural remedies that surrounded them.

"It's like he's fighting an infection," Gamble concluded. "But I can't explain what it is, or what to do."

"What do you need?" Junker questioned.

Marlene was silent. Silent and composed. To them she looked…she looked almost scary.

"I need a nice sized helping of the poison," Gamble told them. "If not a pre-made antidote. You don't make stuff like this without an antidote. Without something…" he scratched his head. "…without something more to go on…I mean, at this rate he's going to burn up in a couple days."

Dr. Gamble looked at Marlene and told her: "I'm sorry. I can't do any—"

"I'll get it for you," Marlene interrupted without looking at him. Her steely stare was looking at something else, something far away from that room.

She spoke to Junker: "I need five volunteers who know how to use an armored shrike. I need them ready to go within the hour."

"What?" Junker was surprised. "What are you—"

"Listen, they already have a good head start on us. What? Forty minutes or so? If we're going to catch them then we need to get moving."

Junker wanted to say more—ask more—but Marlene Angel threw him a very determined stare and that was enough to motivate him. 

She leaned over her unconscious lover. Dr. Gamble swore he could see a single tear tracing along her cheek, but she brushed it away quickly as she whispered to Yuji.

"They took away our paradise…now I'll take hell to them. I'll get our son back, Yuji, my love. I'll get you back, too."

She gave him a soft kiss on the forehead then stood.

Gamble was certain that the Marlene Angel he found standing in front of him at that moment was a much different person than the one he had seen carry water, tend gardens, and play soccer with the kids for the past year. 

He was right.

***

Marlene lit the last torch in the chamber. The ring of light softly illuminated all but the highest reaches of the cave's ceiling. 

Inside the cave were the metal ghosts of her past: The six remaining armored shrikes that had been a part of their return to Earth. Around them were stacks of crates and barrels filled with ammunition, power cells, spare parts, and more.

When they had hidden them in this cave they had hoped that they would rust and whither into dust as unwanted relics. Yet still, they knew that someday—somehow—they might be needed again. That's why Yuji, Marlene, and the others had taken care in storing the mechs.

Marlene was drawn to one dusty locker at the foot of one of the shrikes. She flipped open the lid and looked in at the contents.

The uniform still fit—despite five years and a baby; Marlene was in as good a shape as ever. Tending fields, hauling water, and raising a young child had forced her to stay in peek condition. They all were—those who weren't in good shape died.

She zipped the coveralls over the red tunic, then pulled brand new, green upper body armor from a storage container in the trunk. 

She could feel a long dormant part of her rumble with joy as it felt itself being raised to the surface again; all while another part of her wept silently for losing the innocence they had worked so hard to build.

She wondered—she wondered if that was how Yuji had felt in the Double Edge, with his B-Cells activating and bringing a new, nasty personality to the surface. She wondered if she could become the cold soldier that she needed to be now and still someday return to the loving mother she had been for five years.

Then for the final touch…the final symbolic return to her old self. 

Marlene Angel pulled back her hair and slipped on the black bands. Her double ponytails dangled to her shoulder blades.

More cases, more trunks; heavy assault rifles, pistols, spare clips, explosive charges, grenades--a variety of ordinance that had sat quietly in the cave waiting to be summoned again.

She could almost hear the weapons laughing at her, as if they had known that someday man would come looking for them again. As if they had known that their sleep was only to be temporary.

It all made Marlene hate their attackers that much more.

***

Marlene walked with a determined stride to the gathering of volunteers. Each had re-supplied and familiarized themselves with the shrikes. Each had found their old uniform and armor or taken fresh sets from the stockpile.

Now they waited on the outskirts of the village for their final orders. It was the thick of night, but there could be no more delays. Not if they were to save Yuji. Not if they were to catch Takashi's kidnappers.

Marlene walked in front of them and took note of each.

Captain William Junker—she knew from his stories and his calm demeanor under fire that he was a veteran. She also knew Gunther Gerhardt; he was not the most experienced shrike pilot but he had courage and strength.

Then there was Darren Moss and "Pistol" Jones; both had been shrike pilots on the return mission. 

Moss—a thin black man—was a solid veteran of many campaigns. She had watched him grin as he had reacquainted himself with his old mecha.

"Pistol" Jones' nickname came from the dual handguns he preferred over rifles when out of the mech. 

He was cock-sure, that was true; but that attitude made him take to the mission with enthusiasm, even if he was leaving behind a wife and two children.

And finally there was Denise Karr. A short brunette in her late 20's who had been a support technician for an advanced mecha platoon. She could pilot a shrike well enough, but she had never been a front line soldier. 

As for the original pilots other than Moss and Jones, one had been killed earlier that day in the surprise attack; the others had died either from illness or injury in the years since their arrival.

Paradise, Marlene had often noted, came with a price tag.

She surveyed her crew. 

They would do, she thought, they just need to stay out of my way.

***

The tracking party of six white armored shrikes roared through the dark. 

Night vision that fed off the star filled clear sky above helped navigate the main road. But that dirt road was overgrown with trees.

While this made it difficult to move fast quietly, it also made it easy for Marlene to track their quarry. So many fallen branches could only come from the escaping carrier truck. Tire tracks were also easy to spot, even with the night vision.

No, their targets either weren't afraid of being followed or were in such a hurry that they didn't care. Marlene wasn't sure which answer was correct. 

Maybe both.

Her forearm-mounted computer offered a map of the region. The GPS signal still worked—not all of the orbital satellites were dead. Some, she supposed, had plenty of onboard power to keep operating indefinitely as long as their orbits didn't need adjusting or maps re-calibrating.

"Hold!" She called into her head set.

The mechs, to varying degrees, came to a halt.

"What is it?" Junker asked.

Marlene lowered the cockpit of her ride and exited. Junker did the same. 

They were standing on the road on a barren hilltop. In front of them and below was a canopy of trees barely visible across the dark landscape.

"Look, here," she spoke to Junker but it was apparent to him that she was really talking to herself. She had already decided on something.

She explained what her map saw that here eye's couldn't: "This road descends into a valley—a tight valley—between two rock formations. Lots of jungle."

"So?" Denise Karr's voice came over the headset. They could all hear Marlene's words.

"So," Junker finished their leader's thought. "So it's a perfect place for a trap."

Marlene looked at the darkness. She could feel them out there.

"A trap? Are you nuts, boss? They're trying to bug out of here," Moss let his thoughts be known.

"No," Marlene countered. "Listen to me. They hit us good—they planned this out. They'd leave a rear guard to stop any pursuit. It's what I'd do."

"Me too," Junker agreed.

"Then what should we do? Walk into the trap?" Karr was sarcastic.

"More or less," Marlene told them.

***

The four mercenaries—spread into two sets of two--sat amidst the trees of the jungle. They had been tensed for nearly an hour, ever since they had first heard the sound of approaching engines.

The mines were placed. The fields of fire were ready. The road was covered. They just needed the prey to fall into the trap. Once it was done, they too could take to the road.

Of course they hadn't been expecting armored shrikes but no matter: Two of their number carried portable rocket launchers. They would be used after the first of the mechs hit the minefields. 

It was going to be easy.

The sounds of the approaching enemy fighters echoed along the dark road once more. Far ahead, in the distance, there was some sort of light moving. Could the mechs really be travelling with their spotlights on? Where they so unsuspecting of the trap that lay ahead?

The mercs weren't used to fighting trained soldiers. The idea that the tables had already been turned never entered their minds…

…something rolled down the slope behind two of the ambushers. 

"Hey…what was—"

The night exploded with shrapnel and fire. Two of the mercenaries were immediately shredded to bits. 

The remaining two overcame their shock and dove for cover, but one never made it. A solitary bullet had found its mark in his forehead.

***

Marlene Angel darted down the slope further. Her night vision goggles told her exactly where the last mercenary was hidden. She could also see the basic ambush configuration that had been set on the road.

"Listen to me!" She called to her enemy.

His response was to fire from his machine gun. The bullets scattered wildly above her head. He did not have night vision.

"Listen! I don't want to fight you," she called out. "We can make a deal! We can make a deal!"

She saw him pull a grenade from his belt.

"No! Don't do it!"

He stepped out from the tree with all intentions of hurling the ordinance at her position. She had no choice.

Marlene cut him down where he stood. His body fell then she took cover as the grenade exploded in the dead hand.

She issued orders over her headset for the others to move off the road and go along the mountainside to avoid what had to be mines and traps. In the meantime she rushed to the remaining bodies of her enemy.

She grabbed them one at a time with both hands and shook them, hoping for a sign of life.

"Where is my son! Where is he! Damn you!"

She tossed the bodies down hard.

The first fingers of sunlight began to peek over the eastern horizon.

***

"Well there we have it," Junker was looking through a set of binoculars.

Ahead of them in a wide-open area, was an old supply depot complete with storage tanks and two rows of warehouses. 

But that wasn't the most important part.

Two air transports waited on the concrete tarmac. The one furthest away from Marlene and Junker's observation point was taking a nice long drink from a refueling vehicle.

Two red and white shrikes patrolled the perimeter. A handful of infantry sat in groups in the shade under the transports. There were no fixed guard positions to the base. In fact, it seemed old and neglected. 

Marlene assumed that it was a temporary base at best—one used as the staging area for the assault on the village. Now it was the evacuation point.

The fuel truck finished with the first bird and drove to the second. 

A group of people, mostly red and white clad mercenaries, appeared from one of the warehouse buildings and walked quickly toward the fueled transport.

Marlene recognized two people in this group.

Through her field glasses she could see the tall man's scar. She could also see that instead of the hooded tunic he had worn to infiltrate their home he was now wearing a crimson military uniform complete with four stars. 

The second person was even more familiar. It was her son, Takashi. He was being led, forcibly, by the hand of the tall man. Led toward the open doors of the completely refueled and ready-to-go air ship.

Junker spoke: "Marlene, wait, let me bring up the shrikes—"

"Bring everyone up," she said as she rose to her feet and started to move forward.

"Wait!"

"I'm going to kill them," she told him. "I'm going to kill every last one of them."

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

4. Double Edge

Dr. Gamble: "What do you mean you didn't find an antidote? Not even a sample of the poison? Marlene, it doesn't matter what else you found. Yuji is going to die. There is nothing I can do. Yuji is going to die."


	4. 4 Double Edge

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

4. Double Edge

The supply depot sat in a clearing that had cut two square miles of concrete out of the middle of the jungle. A gate and a road led away to the north; two long warehouses sat parallel to one another on the eastern side of the depot, and four large fuel tanks rested in the northeastern quadrant.

The two transports were parked opposite the warehouses. Four red and white clad infantrymen sat lazily in the shade of the transport's nose cone between its two massive cargo hatches.

Two additional men, dressed in technicians' overalls, operated the fuel truck that was just beginning to feed the second air ship. One of these men was monitoring the gauges on the side of the fuel truck, the other struggling to attach the hose to the bird.

Various drums, crates, a burned out vehicle, and other assorted eyesores were strewn around the walls of the buildings.

The first armored shrike—a variation of a heavy-duty shrike that had obviously been modified from cannibalized parts—was to the north, beyond the transports, near the main gate.

The second (which was a beat up older model probably dating back to the early days of armored personal mechanized fighters) was in the southwestern quadrant of the depot and on the move with its back toward Marlene as it patrolled the perimeter. 

Marlene burst through the southern tree line heading north.

All these details were secondary to Marlene Angel. She was concentrated on the small group of individuals who had exited the northern most warehouse and were headed toward the open cargo bay on the transport furthest away from her position.

One of those in the group was the man who had attacked her at the village—the man with the scar now wearing a crimson military uniform with four stars. 

Another in this group was her son, who was being hurriedly shuffled toward that open cargo hatch.

Marlene could hear the air ship's engines spool to life.

She jogged forward and cocked the grenade launcher on the front of her heavy assault rifle. As she moved she lobbed the shell in the direction of the relaxing infantrymen.

The weapon hit the underside of the nose cone of the craft, letting loose a volley of hellish shrapnel that fell upon the unsuspecting mercenaries like a deadly rain of fire. 

One of the men—he had been standing—was all but decapitated by the explosion. His body fell limp as if it had only been a mannequin waiting for a fast breeze to knock it over.

Another was mortally wounded and rolled about clutching his neck. 

The remaining two were hurt but had enough sense to get moving. 

The explosion drew the attention of the scar-faced man and his entourage as they came within a few steps of their getaway vehicle. He pointed toward her—still a couple hundred yards away—and three of his bodyguards put her in their sights.

Marlene hurried and angled her trajectory toward the first warehouse. There was a dumpster and some old rusted barrels there that might provide cover. 

The soldier inside told her how foolish this attack was—she was outnumbered and outgunned. She should have waited for Captain Junker to call in the full compliment of shrikes.

The mother inside had overruled the soldier—the kidnappers were making off with her son. Once they got in the air Takashi might be gone forever. She could not wait. She'd rather die trying then let him slip away without a fight.

The two injured mercs underneath the transport brought their weapons to bare. A volley of bullets streaked past Marlene as she neared the corner of the warehouse.

She held her weapon side ways and fired wildly as she moved—firing on full automatic. 

The initial explosion had shocked these two enemies and so they were easy to suppress; they staggered backward hoping to find cover beneath the transport. Their shock would not last, but it did buy Marlene time.

Marlene was just about to the warehouse when she felt her entire body get thrown through the air. Only after she was air borne did she hear the explosion that had splintered the tarmac on her left. 

She hit the ground and rolled at first uncontrollably and, then, purposely toward the dumpster at the corner of the warehouse.

The soldier-turned-mother-turned soldier once more felt the burning sting of light shrapnel on her thigh and in her shoulder. She could hear pieces of the hot fragments sizzling in her upper body armor.

Her head was foggy—no doubt a concussion, mild at best--had just been dealt to her. 

She ignored it all.

She popped up from behind cover to see the second mecha—the one from the southwest area—moving across the concrete field in her direction. It had let loose an explosive volley that had been short of its target, otherwise Marlene would have been peppered with much more shrapnel and her quest would've ended abruptly.

She noticed that this shrike—this older model—had one notable upgrade: a gattling gun most likely stolen from a heavy-duty mech. That gun began to rotate.

Marlene knew what was coming and ducked behind the metal dumpster. She heard the hailstorm of rounds rip into the metal container and spark—she wondered if its walls would be strong enough to keep the bullets at bay.

Even over the torrent of gunfire she could hear the first transport's engines start to build to a crescendo. Her time was running out…fast.

Marlene Angel, sensing no other option, decided to commit suicide. 

She came around the dumpster with her rifle blazing bullets and letting fly two grenades—the last two in the weapon. 

Some of the bullets hit the red and white shrike; most went flying past it hitting nothing but thin air. One grenade hit its left leg but didn't do much more than ruin the paint job. The second grenade went wide.

The gattling gun stopped firing at the dumpster and swiveled to track the now-moving target. At only fifty yards and in the open she was an easy hit, even for the most novice of mech drivers.

Then the right arm of the red and white shrike exploded. The whole armored vehicle tipped and nearly fell.

Marlene looked to her left. 

Gunther Gerhardt's modified heavy-duty shrike led the others from the southern tree line. She knew it was Gerhardt's: she recognized the spray-painted heart with the word "Mother" written inside that decorated the right "shoulder" of the vehicle.

Marlene didn't have time to celebrate. While her comrades dealt a series of deadly rounds to the armored foe she returned to her pursuit of the first transport.

Blocking her path was the fuel truck and its two technicians. They had pulled pistols and were taking aim. However, the newly arriving shrikes made them rethink their position.

Marlene didn't care. She fired on them nonetheless. Her shots riddled one and wounded the other. 

She started to run again but found that her legs weren't willing to comply. The shrapnel in her left one was slowing her down. She pleaded with it to move faster but it would not cooperate. The best she could do was a fast walk.

She was vaguely aware that the shrike to her left was burning—she could hear the screams of the driver. She took a perverse pleasure in hearing him suffer. They should all suffer!

She was also vaguely aware that her cohorts were dispatching the remaining two infantrymen under the second transport. 

But what stole her complete attention was the last remaining barrier between her and the first transport—the first armored shrike flanked by the three bodyguards. 

Oddly enough they were not advancing on her, just holding their position like a line in the sand.

A wind nearly blew Marlene over. It was the wake of Captain Junker's shrike as it roared past her directly at the remaining enemies. A second shrike—"Pistol" Jones' unit—stopped next to her and extended its free arm.

"Get on!" The pilot yelled.

Marlene grabbed hold as best she could and they moved forward.

The enemy infantry began to fall back toward the open cargo door. The engines of the transport were at full power.

Then the enemy shrike did something strange. A compartment opened and a couple of keg-shaped canisters rolled forward and away from it. A moment later and those canisters began spewing a thick smoke screen.

"No! No!" Marlene screamed as her ride raced across the ground.

She heard the unmistakable 'clang' of a closing hatch followed by the equally undeniable sound of a transport lifting off.

She watched as Junker's mecha disappeared behind the veil of smoke then, two second later, Jones drove them through that smoke as well.

They stopped next to the Captain's ride and Marlene jumped from the mech's arm—her leg buckled beneath her and she fell to her knees.

She reached skyward with her hand as if she might be able to grab the fleeing craft, but it was no use. The transport rose up, out, over, and beyond the jungle trees…taking her son with it.

***

"Hold still," Junker said as he finished wrapping the bandage around the pants of her uniform leg. 

Marlene had no intention of holding still. She barked orders to her people.

"Moss, Denise—check these warehouses. Look for anything that could have anything to do with the poison they stuck in Yuji. Pistol, check on the transport they left behind—the front is a little damaged but it should still fly."

Gunther spoke: "What you do wit 'dees two?"

He was referring to their two prisoners—one was one of the body-armored mercs from under the nose cone, the other a wounded technician who had been operating the refueling truck. Both were injured but not mortally. Gunther had them on the ground sitting against the wall of the first warehouse.

"Wait on them," she said, then flinched as Junker took off her shoulder armor.

Junker, surprisingly bashful to the point of sounding like an embarrassed kid, told her: "Marlene, I'm going to need to clean the wound, it took a heck—"

Marlene had no modesty. She knew what he needed to do and she quickly, albeit painfully, pulled off her tunic. The wound was low on her shoulder above her left breast.

"Fix it," she commanded.

Junker did as he was told, although his older hands shook not from age but from nerves. He still had a fair share of modesty.

He pulled a small piece of metal from her bare skin then used a first aid kit to start stitching the deep cut. She would have a scar. He figured that she had lots of scars from her years as a soldier, most of which weren't visible on the surface.

"When you're done," she went on, "get the transmitter out. Run the antenna up on one of these buildings so we can contact the village."

"Yeah, sure, right."

She noticed Gunther was looking at her.

She scowled and said—perhaps too nastily—"What? You've never seen a tit before?"

Gunther looked away and muttered something that sounded like "sorry".

Junker jumped so fast he nearly stuck the needle straight through her shoulder. Still, it only took a few more minutes until he was done, the wound was bandaged, and she was covered again.

Marlene strolled over to the two men sitting on the ground. The first—the infantryman--was rough looking with wild eyes. She could tell this was no professional soldier—some bandit or mercenary that had managed to get his hands on quality armor and gear.

The second was shaking and mumbling nervously. 

She pulled her pistol from its holster on her back. She cocked the slide.

She asked the infantryman: "Where did they take my son?"

The brute sneered and told her: "Bite me."

In one fluid motion she pointed the gun at his forehead and pulled the trigger. His brains exploded like morbid fireworks against the warehouse wall.

Marlene walked over to the second prisoner.

"Where did they take my son?"

He couldn't get the words out fast enough.

"Houston! Houston! Don't kill me…don't kill me…."

"What's in Houston?"

He eagerly told her: "Another refueling station! Please don't kill me!"

"Who took him? Why?"

"I don't know why…I'm just a mechanic…I work on the shrikes…"

She repeated: "Who took him?"

"General Deeves! He's in charge of our group! People pay him—people pay us—to do things. Someone paid him!"

Marlene knew that "pay" wasn't money like in the ancient days. Pay was probably food, or ammunition, or other resources valuable for survival.

"What about the poison you used? Where's the antidote?" She lowered the gun directly in his face for effect.

"I don't know about any poison," he clambered. "I didn't go on the raid—I stayed here to watch the transports."

She didn't seem satisfied.

The man offered: "We unloaded a bunch of stuff in the warehouse. Maybe something is in there?!"

The voice of Darren Moss interrupted her interrogation as he emerged from between the two main, sliding doors of the warehouse that were in the process of rolling open. 

"Marlene! You need to see this!"

She spoke to Gunther: "Watch him."

"Ya."

Gunther was still shaking—possibly from the tit; maybe from the exploded head of their first prisoner; probably some combination of both.

Marlene walked in to the warehouse. Daylight drifted in behind her.

There was a palette of crates and boxes partially covered by a tarp. In front of that stack was something she hadn't seen in a long, long time.

"Is that what I think it is?" Denise Karr stared at the behemoth.

Marlene let her eyes adjust. The metal beast was shiny and new—it looked as if it had never been used.

"Yes," she told them. "It's a double edge."

"For the sleeper brigades, right?" Moss added.

Marlene nodded her head.

"What the hell is going on here?" Denise Karr wondered for them all.

***

"Marlene? Marlene, is that you?" It was Dr. Gamble's voice coming over the transmitter. Junker had assembled it on top of a crate outside of the warehouse.

"Yes. How's Yuji?"

"Not good, Marlene," came the static-filled reply. "Did you find the antidote? Did you find the poison? What about Takashi?"

Marlene dreaded saying the words: "We're…I'm still looking for my son. We found a warehouse full of military supplies including a double edge armor shrike, the kind Yuji used to pilot."

Dr. Gamble's distant voice repeated the question: "Did you find the antidote? Or the poison?"

She hesitated then admitted: "No. Nothing like that."

There was a lag in response from the village. Marlene became afraid that they had lost the signal. Finally the doctor's voice—a resolved, saddened voice—returned.

"It doesn't matter what else you found, Marlene. Without an antidote—without at least the poison itself…Marlene, Yuji is going to die."

He repeated once more: "Yuji is going to die."

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

5. Reconstitute

Chief Fuentes: "Things are bad…my son is gone…young Yuji is near death…and now our village faces a threat that we haven't faced in a decade…the Blue are coming, and I don't think we can stop them."


	5. 5 Reconstitute

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

5. Reconstitute

Marlene rested her head against the interior side window of the cockpit. How long had it been since she had slept? Or even slowed down?

She glanced at Captain Junker. He was trying hard to suppress a smile as he piloted the air ship. He too was unleashing some buried past person from deep within. 

The late afternoon sun hovered over the jungle. She could see the main road below. Junker was following it toward the village. It was going to be a while before they got there and that was fine with her.

What was she bringing back, anyway? 

Her son? No.

A cure for Yuji? No.

A prisoner, crates full of military hardware, and a double edge armor shrike which was useless to them—useless at least until they headed on to Houston.

But that was for later. For now she had to go home and watch her lover—the father of her child--die. To loose him…after all this…after having found peace…

Marlene drifted into a sleep born of exhaustion.

Flashes of light bounced through her dreaming mind. Silhouetted images matted against bright video screens. Dark voices booming at her.

Someone else was with her. Yuji? But he was hurt…he seemed weak…she felt afraid.

A familiar voice (who was it?) spoke: _"The B-cells could be best described as an overly powerful antibody. Their instinct is to aggressively kill off whatever germs might invade the body…"_

Where am I?

Another voice…a commanding voice…told them both: _"Once the antibodies of the B cells are activated a Sample's injuries should be able to heal more quickly."_

Yes of course…in front of the high council…with Yuji…after I had found Yuji on the Military Station…when I couldn't forget him because even then, before I knew it, I loved him.

__

"A benefit to which the sample, or should I say to which young Yuji Kaido can most likely attest."

Marlene sat straight in her chair so fast that the pilot nearly jumped.

"What?" Junker asked. "What is it?"

*** 

Dr. Gamble walked out from the cover of the medical hut. Other than Yuji Kaido, all of his patients were either home or buried. There hadn't been much in the way of middle ground.

Chief Fuentes, his head hung low, walked over to the village's physician.

"How is Yuji?"

Gamble simply shook his head at the Chief. 

Fuentes let out a sigh and past on more bad tidings.

"My scouts returned and they do not bring good news."

"More bandits?" Gamble was skeptical.

"Worse," the Chief told him. "Something our village hasn't faced since long before the second earthers arrived. There are Blue in the fields to the northwest—a whole herd of them. If they stay on the path they are on, they will be here tomorrow."

Gamble asked the obvious question: "No nest? Where did they come from?"

The Chief answered: "No nest. As to where they have come from, it matters not. I think the stench of battle has drawn them. Only when we learn to stop fighting ourselves will we ever truly be safe."

The Chief began to walk away but a roar from the sky stopped him. The two men and all the villagers watched as a transport ship came swooping over the northern valley walls.

***

"What? An armor shrike is a weapon, not a medicine," Gamble seemed shocked at what Marlene was suggesting.

She explained it again for the group to hear. They were standing outside of the tent inside which Yuji was dying.

"Listen to me. Yuji's genetic structure includes a mutation that is called b-cells. They are dormant unless activated. The Double Edge shrike was designed to stimulate his b-cells so that he could be a better fighter. I can't explain every detail, but the bottom line is that it also boosts his immune system."

"I see," Gamble nodded but he didn't seem to really understand.

"We place him in the shrike and activate it. The vehicle has projection devices that interface with Yuji and stimulate his b-cells," she went on. "You said the poison was like an infection. It's possible that when his immune system is boosted by the shrike it will give him the extra power his body needs to resist that infection."

"Whoa," Denise Karr stepped in. "Didn't the activation of his b-cells lead Yuji to go over the edge? Didn't he nearly kill you?"

Marlene nodded: "The b-cells are the origin of the Blue. He became erratic…mean. But I brought him back. I can do it again if I have to."

"Say, boss, what if he goes psycho all over us?" Moss spoke everyone's thought. "We've already had our clocked cleaned. Now a sleeper? I dunno."

"Please…" Marlene pleaded with Gamble and Fuentes. "If we don't try…Yuji will die."

Fuentes looked at Gamble. 

The doctor shrugged and admitted: "There's nothing more I can do for him. It's worth a try."

Fuentes nodded his approval.

Marlene told Pistol Jones: "Go get the Double Edge and bring it here."

He nodded and walked off.

"Where is Gunther?" Fuentes asked.

Marlene looked around to make sure only the Chief and Gamble could hear.

"He's back at the transport…he's guarding a prisoner we brought back with us. One of the mercenaries."

Gamble was surprised and asked: "Why did you leave him at the ship?"

She told him, bluntly, "Because I'm worried the villagers would rip him apart. I can't say I'd blame them."

Fuentes, with a healthy dose of indignation, told her: "My people would never do such a thing."

There was no denying the meaning of the grief-stricken chief. He was drawing a distinction between the original villagers—"my people"—and the second earthers. It was the first time Marlene had ever felt like an outsider to the village. It stung.

"Is he injured?" Gamble asked.

"Yes…he's got a bullet hole in his leg."

"I'll go check it out," Gamble said, then added: "doesn't look like I'm needed here anymore, anyway."

Gamble took his medicine bag and walked away. 

"Chief," Marlene said, humbly. "I'm sorry about Bo. I loved him, too."

Fuentes regarded her with a stern look, then walked away.

When he was gone, Marlene entered the medical tent and looked at her husband. He was lying on the cot with a cool rag over his head. His breath was slow.

She kneeled alongside his bed and took his hand. She let it all come flowing out. Her eyes watered and the tears flowed.

"Yuji…this has to work," she sobbed. "I realize now, I can't save Takashi without you. I need you, Yuji. Our son needs you."

***

Dr. Gamble ascended the ramp into the portside cargo hold. It was full of armor shrikes but he didn't' see the Double Edge; it was in the compartment on the other side of the vehicle.

Gunther Gerhardt met him just inside.

"Hello, doctor," the big man with the machine gun greeted. 

"Marlene sent me to check on your prisoner. How is he? Where is he?"

Gunther motioned to the back of the hold.

"Leg is hit. Bleeding on and off. Who cares?"

Gamble drew a disapproving look: "I care. I'm a doctor."

A voice called from a distance away in the starboard cargo hold

"Yo, Gunther," it was Pistol Jones' voice. "Can you give me a hand here?"

Gunther alternated looks at the cargo hold behind him, Gamble, and the other cargo area.

"It's okay, go ahead," Gamble assured him.

"He is a pussy cat, anyhow. Pissed himself twice already. Hands are tied…he give you no problem."

Gerhardt moved off to assist Jones with the Double Edge. Dr. Gamble walked into the dark of the cargo hold until he found the prisoner—really just a young man—sitting on the floor against the wall with his hands bound behind his back. A trickle of blood seeped from underneath a bandage that had been poorly dressed onto his right leg.

"Hello, I'm the village doctor and they sent me to check your wound out."

The man was shaking. Then he eyed Charles Gamble closer.

The enemy technician peered and asked: "Hey…do I know you?"

"I don't think so. Let's see that wound."

The tech sounded surer this time and spoke in a whisper so that no one else might hear.

"Yes, I know you. Hey, you got to get me out of here."

Gamble pressed against the bandage. The man squirmed and grunted at the pain.

"Okay, you still have some pain. I've got just the thing for that," the doctor told his patient.

"No, listen, that big guy wants me dead. I want out."

Gamble pulled a vial from his bag.

"There's no where to go. Just miles of jungle out there. You wouldn't last a day on this leg. Besides, they don't want to kill you, they want more information."

Gamble stuck a syringe into the small bottle and filled it.

The prisoner asked: "So what are you going to do about that?"

Gamble assured him, "I'm not going to let that happen."

*** 

Captain Junker stood with Gunther and Dr. Gamble looking over the contorted face of the dead prisoner's body. 

"Convulsions?" Junker repeated what Gamble had said.

"Yes," Gamble was breathing fast and appeared to be upset. "He said his leg was really hurting him. I just gave him a common pain medication. It must have been an allergic reaction. One in a damn million."

Gamble rested his head in his arm and placed it against the wall of the cargo hatch.

Junker placed a hand on the doctor's shoulder.

"There's no way you could've known, doc. Don't beat yourself up over it. If you had better stuff…hell, if we all had better stuff…"

***

"How is Yuji?" Fuentes walked to Marlene.

She was sitting on the ground by a campfire next to the armor shrike. 

The mechanical humanoid was down on its iron knees, the position used for easy entry and exit. Yuji's silent form was secured in the cockpit in full uniform, all wires and components attached. The shrike let loose a soft hum from its activated power core.

"I don't know," she answered honestly.

"What are you going to do if this works?"

She told him: "We think there's enough fuel in the transport to get us to Houston. Then we'll have to figure out where they went from there. Houston is a waypoint, not the destination. Still, we have to go after Takashi. This isn't over, it's just starting."

Fuentes nodded in agreement then followed up: "And if it doesn't work?"

She didn't say anything but she knew that if Yuji died it wouldn't change the fact that she had to go after her son. The other volunteers had already pledged their support.

Fuentes said to her: "I hear your prisoner died."

She nodded her head but still refused to look away from the flickering flames.

"Bad luck," she answered. "Lots of bad luck today."

He replied, "My father told me once that we make our own luck."

"My father died when I was ten," she reminded him.

They listened for a moment; listened to the gentle lapping of the campfire; listened to the steady hum of the Double Edge.

Chief Fuentes broke that silence after what seemed a very long time.

"You had better get your sleep, Marlene Angel. If things do not change, sometime tomorrow morning the Blue will be here."

She nodded her head in understanding. She didn't know where the Blue had come from or how, it was all too confusing. There was so much more going on here than met the eye. 

Nonetheless, she knew that a fight was coming with daylight.

Fuentes stood and walked away, disappearing into the dark beyond the radius of the campfire.

Marlene Angel, alone except for the silent form of her dying lover secured inside the war machine, began to hum a familiar old tune—Yuji's favorite song from his old life, on old Earth.

__

Maybe, if I do it just right, he'll wake up and sing it with me.

Maybe.

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

6. Pursuit

Marlene: "We thought we were safe from the outside world, but it came and found us…so many Blue…where did they come from?…they got here how? No! No, that's not possible!"


	6. 6 Pursuit

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

** **

6. Pursuit

"Yep, they're moving right at you. It's like they can smell the village, the bastards," Captain Junker's voice came over the radio. "They're coming around the ridge now; a whole mess of 'em. 'Bout thirty I'd say, give or take. I see only tank beetles and choppers. Nothing in the sky."

Junker had taken a foot patrol to one of the mountain faces to spy the Blue's approach. His transmission was filled with static and interference—if he hadn't been on such high ground Marlene wouldn't be able to hear him at all.

"If they're on the ridge," Moss observed, "then they're an hour away."

Marlene faced Chief Fuentes. They were standing on the northern perimeter of the village. Dawn had come less than an hour before bringing with it thunder clouds that threatened a morning storm.

"What do you want to do?" She asked their leader.

He told her, almost scornfully, "This is new to my people. You know the ways of this more than I. Our village is in your hands."

Marlene signed. She had to remind herself that the Chief had just held his dying son in his arms a few days prior. 

"Boss?" Moss prompted.

"Okay, here's what we do," she spoke to them both. "Chief, gather all the families together and make for the caves to the southwest. Take Gunther and his armor shrike with you. 

"Moss, get everyone who can fire a weapon and is willing to fight. With the armor shrikes…well maybe we've got a chance."

Moss didn't believe her but he carried out her orders nonetheless.

The Chief gave Marlene another one of his long, condemning looks as if she were personally responsible for all that had happened. 

Maybe he was right.

Then he, too, went to carry out his assignment.

Marlene transmitted to Junker: "Listen, Cap, move it back here double time. You should be able to get here before they do."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world."

***

Marlene, dressed in full armor, stood next to the Double Edge and placed a hand on its cool metal surface. She could feel the vibration from the power core. She wondered if Yuji could.

"Just be happy he's still alive," Dr. Gamble said as he surprised her approaching from behind.

He continued: "I don't know if this is going to cure him but I can tell you I didn't think he was going to make it this long. Something must be working."

_Maybe some good luck, for a change,_ Marlene thought to herself.

She told him: "Get to the caves. The people will need you there."

He protested: "The battle is going to be here. There will be wounded."

"No there won't," she rebutted. "The Blue know how to finish the job."

Gamble walked away. She returned her hand to the surface of the machine. Yuji was unconscious and silent dressed in a Double Edge battle suit.

"I love you," she whispered.

***

The five armor shrikes waited at the ridge of the village. 

Around them were another two dozen villagers, some with barely working pistols others with more modern heavy assault rifles (most who had the latter were second earther infantry who had come to the valley with Yuji's team—they wore their old body armor and helmets).

The Blue's approach was unmistakable—they could hear the jungle trees being trampled and smashed; could feel the ground tremble as if a moving earthquake was bearing down on them.

Two of the villagers with older weapons had a change of heart and broke and ran. 

As a flash of lightening zapped across the gray sky the first wave came crashing through. 

Choppers—shaped like giant cockroaches with deadly scythe-like pincers—led the charge.

Marlene and the others let loose with everything they had. She was relieved to see that the cores of these Blue were not shielded.

The core is the Blue's Achilles' heel. But several variants of Blue had evolved over time to cover their core with protective plating or flesh. 

However, with the cores being exposed things were at least the slightest bit easier—yet Marlene understood that the odds were still far against them.

"Yeeeeehaaaaaw…!" Came Pistol Jones' cry as he felled one.

Marlene knew that his bravado was just a mask for the terror he felt.

"Christ, Marlene, tankers at nine o'clock," Junker radioed from his shrike on their left flank.

As the line of choppers moved in a second front opened. A horde of tank beetles appeared on the defender's left: More proof to Marlene that the Blue didn't simply swarm but had coordinated attacks, as if they had a command structure and communication.

Tank beetles were big, hard shelled monstrosities that were almost dinosaur-like in appearance. Their front third was covered with heavy armor plating and was impenetrable with anything short of a heavy gun. Their rear two thirds were more vulnerable but as with all Blue, tank beetles could take a massive amount of damage to their bodies and keep fighting as long as their core was intact. Fortunately this batch also had exposed cores.

The first few tankers stomped several villagers and infantry as they came rumbling into the village underneath the cover of crashing thunder.

"Keep up your fire but fall back to the center of the village!" Marlene ordered.

The people on foot took it the worst. More of the villagers ran; some were caught as they tried to do so. Their antiquated weapons were no match for the Blue.

The second earth infantry faired only slightly better. Some of the soldiers dispatched Blue using their heavy weapons, but not enough to slow the tide. The tank beetles simply ran over several of the foot soldiers, crushing them beneath their iron-clad bodies.

More Blue fell…only to be replaced by still more. Marlene shredded two choppers within seconds of one another but she might as well be throwing pebbles at a tsunami. The Blue paid no mind to their dead, they just moved forward relentlessly like the force of nature they were.

"Infantry, get the hell out of here and make for the caves—make a last stand there," Marlene commanded and the handful of troopers remaining tried to disengage. Some did, some were cut down.

The rain began to fall.

Marlene counted at least a dozen dead Blue but nearly twice that number was still moving in on the defenders as they retreated.

"Here," she said as they reached the center of the village. "We stand here and maybe they won't find the people in the caves."

Marlene's order was mumbled but all understood: no more retreating. If they were going to lose this battle then lose it here; don't lead the Blue to the children, the families.

Her gun ran hot as it unloaded round after round. She could hear Pistol Jones whooping up a storm and yelling obscenities at their attackers. She could hear the sobbing of Denise Karr as that fighter began to realize that her first real battle with the Blue was certain to be her last.

But she did not break.

A pair of tank beetles pushed between the line of shrikes. One sent a shoulder into Moss' unit which then staggered sideways. 

The defender's position was being overrun. Marlene knew this meant the fight was now going to deteriorate from an organized—albeit futile—defensive formation to individual shrikes battling to survive.

Marlene Angle cut down a chopper but as it fell another of the giant bugs spring boarded off of the corpse and leapt at her shrike. Her entire mecha staggered from its weight—the stabilizers raced to compensate but failed due in no small part to the slick mud gathering underfoot in the heavy rain. 

Marlene's machine fell onto its back—the worst possible position.

She struggled with the site of the monster leering into the open cockpit. 

Her armor shrike's main gun was useless at close range. Marlene tried to grab her side arm. Before she could do so, the Blue's core erupted splattering red gore all over her protective faceplate.

Marlene tossed the lifeless hulk off of her machine and stood. She swiveled and saw Chief Fuentes standing some fifty yards away in the rain storm with a bolt action scope-equipped rifle.

She tried to wave a 'thank you' to the grandfather-like chief but she was distracted: another chopper was charging right at Chief Fuentes.

Marlene raised her mech's main gun to fire but before she could pull the trigger the approaching chopper exploded into a ball of guts and shattered shell.

Everything froze for a long moment: the shrikes and the blue (which were now all engaged in close range combat) seemed to take note of this sudden change.

Standing there over the still-trembling remains of the pulverized chopper was a site that sent a shiver along Marlene's spine.

It was the Double Edge. It was Yuji. 

The two blades of the devilish machine had eviscerated the chopper. It stood there, between the pieces of its first victim, like an unholy statue.

"This is all…so…familiar to me…" came Yuji's voice on the communicator.

Then the Double Edge raced forward with its main gun blasting and its twin razor-sharp blades slicing and dicing.

Yuji's appearance not only took the pressure off the other armor shrikes; it also filled those pilots with confidence. 

The battle turned. 

Yuji killed a dozen of the enemies, rolling between them, jumping over them using the machine's boosters, cutting and shooting and destroying. The rest of the fighters scored kills as well—including Denise Karr who found new confidence. 

"Go git 'em Yuji! Woohooo!" Pistol Jones laughed with a slight hint of insanity.

The tank beetles were the hardest, but Yuji and the Double Edge moved too fast and struck with too much deadly precision to be stopped.

What had been a defeat turned into total victory in a matter of minutes.

When it was done, the other pilots stood in awe of the sleeper and his ability. They had all heard the stories, but they could not truly understand until they had seen it for themselves.

Marlene stepped from her shrike. She ignored the pain of her injuries and exhaustion; she ignored the rain that fell in sheets. She raced across the village center, weaving between carcasses of their slain foes. She raced to meet Yuji as he exited the Double Edge. 

They grabbed on to one another and embraced with a passion born from their love as well as the adrenaline of battle. She kissed him deeply then looked into his eyes.

"Oh, thank God, Yuji. I thought I had lost you."

"I'm losing count of how many times you keep saving me," he answered.

She hugged him tight once more.

"They have Takashi. The bastards that poisoned you also have Takashi. We have to go save our son."

"I know," he told her. "But one thing we have to do first."

***

The storm clouds had moved off beyond the valley's protective mountain walls, leaving behind over flowing streams, rock slides on the cliffs, and gobs of mud. 

The air ship, with Marlene at the controls, raced northwest retracing the approach the Blue had taken.

"It has to be out here somewhere," Marlene said.

"What's that?" Yuji seemed distracted. He was sitting in his seat wringing his hands.

"I said there has to be a nest out here somewhere. Where else could the Blue come from?"

"Don't know 'bout that," Junker, the only one else on board, commented. "We'd have found a nest long before now. Or they'd have found us, I 'spect."

Marlene couldn't take her eyes off of Yuji. She could see him wrestling with the impulse to be in the Double Edge again. It was an addiction to him.

He had saved the day. But Marlene was certain there was going to be a huge price tag to pay.

"Now looky here…" Junker was staring out one of the side windows.

Marlene followed his gaze.

"Those can't be…those can't be where the Blue came from…" she trailed off in disbelief.

***

Dr. Gamble walked through the community. He watched as the villagers—some happy to be alive, others sobbing at the loss of loved ones—began moving the massive corpses of their attackers.

He gazed closely at the smashed tankers and shredded choppers.

Dr. Gamble smiled

"Perfect. Absolutely _perfect."_

***

Marlene, Yuji and Junker were on foot armed with machine guns. They walked up to the gigantic containers that lay strewn about the field. Outside of the containers were tracks—Blue tracks.

"Gotta be two dozen of these things," Junker noted the number of them scattered around the fields. 

"Look, Yuji, over here," Marlene was kneeling on the ground pointing at something.

Yuji ignored her. He was staring at one of the now-empty containers.

Junker walked over and looked at what she had spotted. 

He nodded and noted: "Landing gear marks."

She stood and they looked at one another in disbelief.

Yuji spoke aloud but more to himself then them: "These aren't just cargo containers…they're sleeper units. Giant sleeper units. Like I was in."

"Sleeper units?" Junker was shocked but he peered closer and, yes, the containers were lined with various sensors, vents, and assorted technology.

"Based on how far we came," Marlene calculated. "I'd say these containers got here the morning of the day we got hit by the mercs."

She thought, then added: "The day they took Takashi."

Junker summarized: "So someone got a bunch of Blue to take a nap, piled 'em into these containers like flapjacks in a freezer, flew 'em here, then woke em' up?"

The two of them turned and watched Yuji. He was staring at the empty container and wringing his hands.

Junker asked her, quietly: "Is he going to be okay?"

"Yes. Yuji will be okay. I won't let anything happen to him," she answered but she couldn't even convince herself of that. 

Junker beamed his eyes at her.

She spoke again: "But…but it seems to be happening quicker this time."

"Marlene, he's cured of the poison. Maybe we keep him out of the Double Edge now."

"No," she said flatly. "Whoever took my son had the power to fly three dozen Blue here, hit our village, and fly away up to North America. I need Yuji in the Double Edge to fight them, whoever they are."

Junker was surprised, almost mad.

"What if it kills him? What if it drives him over the edge?"

She told the Captain, "I don't care."

"What?"

"If I have to die, I'll die. If I have to sacrifice Yuji—as much as I love him—I will. Understand that I will do anything to get my son back. Anything."

***

The air ship was loaded and ready to go as a new day dawned over the village.

On board were the armor shrikes including the Double Edge. All of the volunteers—including Denise Karr—were on board as well. Pistol James was nursing a broken wrist and Moss had lacerations across much of his face and neck, but they weren't going to leave the job unfinished.

Gunther, meanwhile, was annoyed that he had missed the battle so he was more than eager to get in the thick of things.

Dr. Gamble also joined the group. He convinced them to take him along because they had no clue what condition Takashi would be in when they found him (he had emphasized the 'when' and never used the word 'if').

Marlene was the last one to board. She walked toward the open cargo hatch when a voice called to her.

"Marlene Angel," it was Chief Fuentes.

She turned and waited for him to speak.

"When you find Takashi, make sure you come back here," he told her, then finished: "Make sure you come back home."

She locked eyes with him for a moment then nodded.

A few minutes later the transport's engines lifted the bird off of the ground. It banked hard to the north and sped away.

Marlene, from the cockpit, watched as the village grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared in the thick of the South American forest.

_Goodbye, Paradise._

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

7. Enemies

Marlene: "How could one armor shrike defeat both me and Yuji at the same time? Who could possibly be that good of a pilot? Oh no…no it can't be…not you!"


	7. 7 Enemies

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

** **

7. Enemies

Marlene jerked out of her sleep and sat straight. 

Outside of the window was nothing but the blackness of night. Not even the moon was showing itself over the Gulf of Mexico.

What had woke her? Of course: The wall-rattling snoring of Gunther Gerhardt who was sitting across the aisle from her.

Pistol Jones was over there, too, as well as Dr. Gamble—both also sleeping but not soundly. Darren Moss and Denise Karr were further back in the shadows talking: flirting, actually.

Junker was at the controls but Yuji was no where to be seen.

Marlene knew exactly where Yuji was. She stood, stretched, and walked along the cabin. As she did she allowed her mind to retrace how they had fallen so far behind schedule. 

First they had stopped at the supply depot the mercs had used to evacuate Takashi. There they loaded fuel first into the transport's tanks then into the refueling truck at the depot. They then parked that truck in the port side cargo bay. The extra fuel was worth the extra weight and it ensured they'd have enough to get to Houston.

Everything seemed great, especially when they found the exact coordinates for their destination on the ship's nav computer. The mercenaries hadn't been very good at covering their tracks—the data pointed straight to a refueling base north of Houston.

_Amateurs_.

Then—when they were in the midst of the Caribbean Sea—a problem had developed with the rear rotor. They spent a tense two hours looking for land hoping that the vehicle would stay air borne. 

Marlene managed to get them to the Cuban coast, where Junker and Gunther had spent hours repairing the rotor's throttle system and power couplings.

Now they were over the Gulf but behind schedule. 

Then there was Yuji. He was developing an addiction to the Double Edge just as he had before, but it appeared to be developing more quickly.

With her thoughts gathered, Marlene strolled into the starboard cargo bay. The vibration from the flying transport's engines rattled the shrikes and containers therein.

He wasn't in the Double Edge; he was just staring at it.

"Yuji?"

"I know, I know," he said to her. "But it's different this time, Marlene. Something…I don't know…I feel as if it's changing me, but not controlling me."

"But it is controlling you," she pointed out with an edge in her voice. "You promised me you'd stay away from it during the trip, but here you are."

He started to explain but she interrupted him.

"Listen to me, Yuji, I need you to pilot the Double Edge when we find Takashi and whoever took him. I need you to be stronger than them because I need my son back. I'm willing to risk that."

Her hands clenched into fists and her eyes became both angry and sad at the same time.

She continued: "But damn it, I can't have you going over the edge like last time. I can't handle that again, Yuji. I need you to be strong when you're not in the Double Edge, too. I need you to be strong for me and our son."

She was shaking. He could see there was something more.

It took some effort but Yuji walked away from the Double Edge and stood in front of Marlene, his hands on her shoulders, and looked into her deep blue eyes.

"Marlene?"

"I'm just asking for a little damn help in all this," the pressure was boiling inside. "I've been holding it all together…I've been a good soldier again…but…"

"What? What is it Marlene? Talk to me."

She closed her eyes and answered: "The Double Edge changes you, it's not your fault. But me, Yuji, what's my Double Edge? Why can a feel myself changing back into what I used to be so easily. So easy it scares me. The fighting, the killing…it's my instinct. It's my purpose."

He assured her: "No, no, Marlene—"

"The only time I ever feel like…like a woman; like a normal person, is when I hold my son. My baby. So small, so delicate. Without him, I'm afraid of what I'd become again. I'm afraid, Yuji, of what I really am."

He hugged her.

The door to the cargo hatch opened and in walked Darren Moss being led by the hand by Denise Karr. They were laughing and grabbing at one another. 

"Oops," Denise said as she saw them. "Sorry, wrong cargo bay."

They both giggled and returned the way they had come. 

Yuji waited a moment then told her: "Marlene, you didn't save me that first time because you were a soldier. You saved me because you cared about me. You saved me because of how you made me feel; because of how much you made me care about you."

She pulled away gently. There was just a hint of tears in her eyes. Seeing them water made his heart sink. For an instant—just a second or two—he didn't feel himself being drawn to the Double Edge.

Marlene put a hand on his cheek.

"Yuji, I want to forget about all this for just a little while," she said. "Just for a little while…we have time…"

She pulled him to her lips.

"…make me forget…"

They kissed and didn't stop. Soon their discarded battle suits were on the cargo floor; soon Marlene was wrapped around Yuji as he hoisted her against the wall of the cargo bay. For a while, Marlene and Yuji forgot everything except for how much they loved one another.

***

It was mid morning when the transport ship circled over the Houston refueling station. That station was a collection of concrete buildings, a small landing strip for conventional airplanes, and a series of massive storage tanks all on the flat plains north of Houston.

Junker spoke as they circled: "Welcome to Texas—the killin' ground."

"What's that?" Yuji asked while he looked over Junker's shoulder. 

Everyone was huddled at the front of the ship.

"The killin' ground," he repeated, then explained. "Texas is so big and flat that it made a great spot to defend 'gainst the swarms of Blue, back in the last days of the U.S. government that is. The whole eastern part of the state was nothing but launching pads for sending people and things into orbit."

"I never thought about that," Yuji said.

Pistol Jones—a native of Arkansas—chimed in: "Man, I remember when I was a kid we learned about all the tact nukes and nuke-tipped artillery shells they used 'round here. Still, they held off the Blue long enough to get 2nd Earth goin'."

Dr. Gamble commented: "Must've been a nightmare."

Junker, who had been a young soldier at the time, explained: "The nightmare wasn't the mushroom clouds on the horizon, cause you knew they were buying you time.

"The nightmare was the front gates at the spaceports—tens of thousands of ordinary folk who knew they weren't going to second earth. They wanted on those shuttles. 

"No, the nightmare was watching soldiers gun down families who were climbing the razor wire. Then again, I reckon the ones who died then were the lucky ones."

He let that sink in.

Marlene, very matter-of-fact, told them: "Whatever happens, we don't want to head west. You get out to the center of Texas and it's all wasteland—_radioactive_ wasteland."

She paused then said: "Everyone knows what to do when we land, right? We've got to find something here that leads us to Takashi, or this whole trip was for nothing."

They nodded their heads collectively in agreement.

"Okay, Yuji," she ordered. "Let's go."

***

The transport's wheels touched the open lot in front of the main building of the station and both cargo hatches dropped open.

Two shrikes raced out from one side—Yuji in the Double Edge and Marlene. The vehicles roared off in separate directions to secure the flanks.

Everyone else came out on foot armed with rifles and handguns.

Gunther and Moss, tasked with finding fuel, headed towards a collection of storage tanks and the vehicles that were rusting in the shadows of those tanks.

Junker led Dr. Gamble, Pistol Jones and Denise Karr into the main building. They were to start looking for any signs of their quarry. 

So far the base seemed deserted. 

The burned out city of Houston—it's buildings collapsed or at least decaying—was visible in the distance to the south.

***

Junker led the others into the main administrative complex. They were walking through what appeared to be ancient cafeteria when a series of lights snapped on and nearly blinded them. The lights came from the balcony above. 

Junker, with a hand trying to shield his eyes, could make out a bunch of people there…people holding heavy duty weapons.

"Don't move! Drop your weapons!" A voice commanded.

Junker sighed. The rest looked to him for guidance.

He threw his gun down and held his hands aloft.

***

The area under the fuel tanks was dark and cramped. Several old tanker trucks were pushed together, a few of which had—long ago—been partially destroyed by fire.

Moss walked behind one of those trucks while Gunther checked the cab.

Gunther heard a loud _thud_—not unlike the sound a body makes when it falls to the ground.

He got out of the cab.

"Darren? Darren, you okay, ya?"

Gunther walked behind the truck. Moss was on the ground unconscious. 

The big man was too slow—he barely saw the butt of the rifle before it hit him square in the chin.

Another _thud._

***

Marlene and Yuji regrouped in front of the transport.

"Anything?"

"No, no nothing," Yuji told her. 

Marlene spoke into her tactical radio: "Captain Junker, status?"

No answer.

"Captain?"

Yuji tried his radio: "Gunther, Moss, either of you copy?"

Static.

A sound came roaring over the complex. 

Yuji and Marlene turned their shrikes and saw a late 20th Century style attack helicopter come swooping in at them. The Apache let loose a volley of rockets.

The shrikes moved fast but the rockets weren't meant for them. The ordinance slammed into the air ship ripping its skin to metal shreds and starting a series of secondary explosions as the fuel truck inside, then the fuel tanks, then the ammunition stores ignited one after another.

The copper buzzed off and didn't appear to be in a hurry to get back. 

A black armored shrike appeared on the roof of the main building. It was black and had an insignia on it—the insignia showed a skull but instead of crossed bones there were crossed flintlock pistols. 

The shrike itself was a type neither of them had seen before. It was sleek like a Bullseye model but didn't appear to carry a main gun. All of its weaponry seemed to be built right in to the chassis.

The shrike leapt down and slammed to the surface in front of Marlene and Yuji. It raised one arm and a series of heavy caliber rounds, shot from a barrel on that arm, peppered Marlene's mecha.

"Marlene! Move!" Yuji sped toward the attacker while Marlene circled to her right in an attempt to flank their opponent. 

Yuji opened fire as he charged to ram the black one. But it suddenly moved—gracefully glided—to its right, firing its arm-mounted gun. 

It was very fast.

Yuji took several shots in the superstructure but they only made him mad. He extended the Double Edge's two blades then hit his boosters resulting in a leap above and at his attacker.

Instead of retreating the enemy mecha extended its arms, grabbed Yuji's airborne machine, and then used the Double Edge's weight against it resulting in it tumbling end over end not unlike a slick judo move.

The Double Edge slammed to the ground on its side. The enemy took aim and fired bullets at the prone fighter.

Marlene came to the rescue. Her main gun sparked rounds off of the black mech unit as she moved in. 

Fluidly—as if the big clumsy machine were in fact a gymnast—the black armor shrike back flipped away from Marlene's charge and ended up behind Marlene.

The enemy vehicle fired from two openings on its shoulders. A series of saw-blade-like edged weapons spun toward Marlene's shrike as if they were deadly frisbees. They clanged into the rear of her cabin (one only a foot away from her head) as well as the rest of the mech's body.

One scored a critical hit.

Marlene's onboard computer flashed a chilling message: PRIMARY ORDINANCE MAGAZINE COMPROMISED.

She felt the explosive rounds stored in the shrike's body start to explode in a chain reaction.

Marlene Angel only had seconds. She opened the rear hatch of the mecha and slid out, all while hitting the accelerator button. 

Marlene hit the ground and covered her head. The empty shrike motored away for a few moments then exploded into a thousand pieces. Chunks of hot metal rained from the sky.

Yuji saw it all as he got his own shrike back on its feet. 

"Marlene!"

He didn't wait to see if she was okay. He fired and raced at the enemy machine, screaming all the way.

The black shrike was unfazed by Yuji's headlong charge. 

It kneeled on one of its mechanized legs, extended one arm, and ejected some sort of long metal rope-like cord. That cord wrapped around the legs of Yuji's armored shrike and pulled tight, freezing its motion and upsetting its balance.

Yuji's machine, once again, crashed to the ground. But that wasn't all. A massive jolt of electrical energy exited the black fighter, crossed the cord, and slammed into Yuji's vehicle.

Yuji screamed in pain as the electronic circuits of his shrike were fried and sparks danced through the cockpit.

Just for good measure the enemy shrike did something Marlene had never seen outside of a few prototype models. It ignited a jetpack and took to the air, lifting and pulling Yuji's machine as it moved.

With the Double Edge hanging from the cord like a wrecking ball, the flying black shrike slammed Yuji into and through a series of hanger walls, one after another.

When it felt it had tormented the defeated sleeper enough, the black shrike cut the cord and let its prey smash to the surface.

Marlene ran over to Yuji's vehicle as fast as she could, but her thigh wound from a few days prior was still painful enough to slow her down.

She got to the Double Edge just as Yuji, his helmet smashed and his nose bloodied, was crawling out.

Yuji, disorientated but still conscious, kept repeating: "Who could beat ME? Who could beat me in my double edge? Who?

"Who could beat us both, at the same time?" Marlene was astounded.

The black armor shrike with the skull and pistols hovered above them. After a moment it moved into kneeling position and the armored pilot emerged. The figure walked over to its beaten opponents and removed its helmet.

Marlene saw a face she hadn't seen in a long, long time.

It was Amick Hendar, former Director of the Training Station and the woman who had so tormented Marlene Angel during her re-education. A woman who had defended the high council during the coupe that Marlene had helped lead. The woman Marlene had shot.

"You?!"

Amick Hendar smiled menacingly and spoke to Marlene.

"I'm pleased to finally see you again, code number 2-8-0-5. And I can assure you, this meeting is no coincidence."

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

8. Old Wounds

Amick: "I've waited a long time for this, code number 2-8-0-5. Now I will have my revenge for your treachery against the high council. In their name and in their memory, I pass judgement on you as a traitor. The sentence is death."


	8. 8 Old Wounds

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

** **

8. Old Wounds

The convoy headed north on Route 59 under an overcast afternoon. 

In the lead was an open-air Humvee driven by an armored soldier with Amick in the passenger's seat. Yuji and Marlene were in the second row and behind them, standing in the cargo area and holding on to the roll bar, were two more soldiers.

The Apache chopper flew low over the Humvee as an escort. Behind the lead car was an armor shrike carrier truck followed by two old style covered army troop transports.

They sped along the deserted road. Only rusted relics, a few of the chilling Blue-created "human dumplings", and assorted debris provided any proof that the northern Houston suburbs had long ago been teeming with life.

The convoy swooped toward an auxiliary gate at Houston Intercontinental Airport. Two soldiers with truck-mounted heavy weapons stood sentry. They opened the gate and the parade of vehicles raced onto the tarmac of the primary runways en route to the main terminal buildings.

Yuji and Marlene, still licking the wounds to both their bodies and egos, where in awe of what they saw gathered on the airport grounds: Tents of various sizes scattered about; campfires surrounded by people, some actually cooking over the flames; vehicles being repaired; several armor shrikes being cleaned or tuned; and some larger tents that looked like mess halls, medical facilities, and sleeping quarters.

It was a city—a mobile city.

The residents were as diverse as the structures. There were plenty of soldiers both on and off duty but also elderly people and young children as well as teenagers. Furthermore, they seemed to represent every conceivable ethnic background. There were at least a couple hundred of the people in all, if not more.

Marlene saw a mother playing with her two infant daughters. Yuji watched as a pilot ran a systems check on a shrike while conversing with a technician. There was also a group of children sitting around an older lady who appeared to be reading to them from a book—it looked as if it were a school class.

And as the convoy swooped past, each of those people took note. 

The soldiers pumped their fists in the air and cheered "Amick!"

The children waved, the mothers smiled, old folks and teenagers clapped.

The convoy kept moving.

As they approached the main building the Apache banked hard and headed for a heliport while the two troop transports—with the rest of Marlene and Yuji's team inside—headed toward a hanger in front of which were parked several air ships in neat orderly rows.

The Humvee halted at a well-guarded terminal entrance and the occupants got out, herding Yuji and Marlene inside behind Amick. They climbed a stairwell and entered a large room that had been converted into some sort of a command post. 

Soldiers and technicians watched monitors and peered over maps. Until, that is, Amick, her guards, and their two prisoners walked in.

The group in the command center included a distinguished-looking gentleman with white hair wearing green fatigues with a Colonel's emblem on his collar as well as a striking young red haired woman in black mecha armor. These two were Hendar's officers.

"It appears our information was accurate," Amick announced to the soldiers. 

Marlene Angel interrupted: "Where is my son?"

Amick turned and addressed her: "I don't know."

"What? You said this meeting was no coincidence," Marlene protested. "Now where is my son?!"

Amick smiled, just a little. 

"We just arrived here a few days ago," the Colonel told Marlene. It sounded as if he had a trace of what would've been called, decades ago, a 'British' accent.

"And when we surveyed the supply depot," Amick continued. "We found a wounded man who had been part of a mercenary group. Apparently he fell out of favor with his leader, was shot and left behind to die."

The red head spat: "Something about stealing food or something."

"When he learned who I was, he wanted to join our group, so he told me that none other than Yuji Kaido—the infamous sleeper—would be arriving at that depot any day," Amick enjoyed explaining.

"Wh-what?" Marlene was astounded. 

Yuji was staring at his hands while he clasped them tightly. He offered: "They knew we were coming…yes…they knew it."

"I suppose so," Amick shrugged him off. "Of course I was certain that you—" she looked at Marlene—"would be coming, too. So we waited."

Yuji grunted: "And who is 'we'?"

Amick waved her arms about at the gathered soldiers.

"Who are we?" she asked the air.

The red headed shrike pilot answered: "We're Hell's Orphans."

"Orphans of Second Earth," Amick added. "The survivors of the disaster you, 2-8-0-5, helped create—you and that treacherous Seno Miyagi."

The Colonel explained: "We move from place to place, finding the resources we need, finding more and more survivors who are tired of living in the shadows."

"And we stomp the Blue anywhere we find them," the red head added.

Yuji chuckled strangely and remarked: "Like locusts."

"Like human beings," Amick corrected.

She told them: "You and Miyagi and the others on Second Earth may have forgotten the cause for which I had dedicated my life, but I did not. The moment I landed I began rebuilding and fighting for man's rightful place on this planet."

Amick strolled around the command center. Her followers looked at her with respect and admiration as she spoke. 

"Some were bandits before, but I've turned them into a disciplined army. Some were hopeless and lived each day waiting for the Blue or disease or starvation to take them and I protected them and fed them with food and hope. And some came from Second Earth as it shattered into pieces."

The Colonel finished for her: "We are nomads just like the ancient tribes. But we have two thousand years of knowledge to draw on."

"We are Hell's Orphans," Amick Hendar repeated. "And we are the hope of man."

Yuji was sweating and his eyes were red—he was missing the Double Edge and the withdraw was starting to effect him more visibly. He began to laugh at Amick's words.

"Orphans? That's right—orphans from the planet that didn't want you."

Marlene asked: "What happened on Second Earth? Do you know? We only heard rumors."

Amick closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.

She told them: "Miyagi was such a fool. He thought he could build paradise in those floating tombs. He thought that what made life difficult on Second Earth was the fighting and the dead comrades. What his arrogant mind didn't understand is that it _was_ the fighting—the missions, the plans, the sacrifice—that made life bearable on Second Earth."

The Colonel continued: "When Miyagi gave up on trying to recapture the Earth he took away the only goals and purpose the people had. Things began to fall apart, starting with discipline."

"At first people liked having the chance to rest and be safe," the red head went on. "Then they started to get restless. Orders were disobeyed. Small disagreements turned into fights. Fights turned into riots."

Amick finished: "Then, one day, one of those fights escalated into pure anarchy on the military station. From what we've heard, Miyagi was gunned down and then a massive firefight in the hanger area ignited a shuttle fuel tank. That created a chain reaction of explosions which breached hull integrity and destroyed the station.

"That left only the Training Facility in Earth's orbit and it could not last on its own. It was abandoned and the survivors came planet side. I do not know what happened to the crew of the resource ship circling the moon."

Marlene bowed her head remembering that, for most of her life, Second Earth had been her home. But Amick did not let up.

"You helped Miyagi overthrow the council. You bear a share of the responsibility for what happened."

Marlene defended: "The council went too far. They were allowing the sleepers' b-cells to become fully activated. It was too dangerous. You saw what Tony Frost did to the medical station. Eventually all the sleepers would've went that way. It was too dangerous."

Amick smiled wryly: "Of course. Too dangerous. You did it all to save us from the sleepers and to save the sleepers from themselves. So you can imagine my surprise when the first time I see you after all these years and there is Yuji, piloting a Double Edge with his b-cells being activated."

Marlene stumbled then tried to answer: "We're trying to get our son back… and Yuji was dying…putting him in the Double Edge was the only way to save him…"

Amick broke in: "Enough! So it's worth the risk when it's a cause important to you, but it is too dangerous when the cause is humanity? You are a fool. You allowed your feelings for the Sample to over ride your training, your discipline, nothing else.

"That's why you helped Miyagi then, and that's why you put the sleeper in Double Edge again now. You proved that you were never the soldier some of us once thought you were."

Amick didn't know it, but Marlene took some small ounce of satisfaction in that observation. 

Yuji, however, was laughing. He seemed to only be paying attention to parts of the conversation. 

"No, Amick Hendar, you are the fool."

The guards watching Yuji raised their rifles to give him a good butt in the head but Amick held her hand in a "stop" gesture. 

They relaxed.

"And then there's you, the sleeper," Amick spoke. "What will you do now without your Double Edge? It is destroyed, you know. How will you fight the Blue now?"

"That's why you're a fool," Yuji started. "And it's why you're so mad. Why you hate Marlene so much and why you can't let go."

"We are fighting a war," she insisted.

"No. No you're not," Yuji lectured her. "That's the problem, isn't it? That's why you want revenge on Marlene. Look around you. The war is over. The Blue have left. Their purpose in nature is done and they have left. Sure, a few here and there because the species is now a part of the ecosystem. 

"But there is no war, and that's what bothers you. You'd rather die fighting than the fate you have now. 

"You didn't beat the Blue with guns and shrikes and nuclear weapons. You couldn't beat them. There was no military solution. Instead, when their purpose on this Earth was complete, the Blue…simply…went away.

"No glorious victory. Not even the dignity of complete defeat. All your efforts were wasted and ineffective. The Blue left when they were done, not a moment sooner. You were irrelevant. All your efforts a waste of time."

Amick gritted her teeth but held her composure.

"Please," Marlene cut in. "Do you know where our son is? Do you know where they took him? That's all I care about now. We wouldn't have left our village behind; we wouldn't be out here bothering anyone if they hadn't taken our son away. He's the only reason…he's the only reason I have for living…please."

Amick Hendar pointed at Marlene then pointed at the ground. In response, the guard behind Marlene grabbed her shoulders and forced her into a kneeling position.

Amick then motioned for the other guard to push Yuji further away, which he did.

"What are you doing!?" Yuji growled but Marlene knew well enough. She kneeled on the floor and waited.

Hendar produced an automatic pistol from her rear-mounted holster. She walked closer to Marlene.

"Wait. Listen, Amick," Marlene hurried. "I'll do whatever you want. Do you want me to beg for mercy? Do you want me to cry? Do you want me to admit to being wrong? I'll do it. I'll do all of it. I'll die however you want. But promise me that you'll let Yuji go to search for our child. That's the only thing that's important anymore. That's all that matters."

Amick said: "I've waited a long time for this, code number 2-8-0-5. Now I will have my revenge for your treachery against the high council. In their name and in their memory, I pass judgement on you as a traitor. The sentence is death. Do you have any last words?"

Amick cocked the slide on the automatic pistol.

Yuji cried out and stepped forward. His reward was a butt from a rifle in his gut and another on the back of his head. He fell to the ground, conscious but immobilized.

He reached toward her but she was too far away.

The condemned prisoner offered her last words with a glaring stare into the eyes of her executioner.

__

"My name is Marlene Angel."

The cold steel of the gun pressed against the victim's forehead.

Amick Hendar pulled the trigger.

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

9. Purge

Amick: "Now that I have had my revenge I can tell you the truth…the truth is that I had nothing to do with the taking of your child…if you want to find the truth you'll have to go home…you'll have to go home to Second Earth."


	9. 9 Purge

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

** **

9. Purge

The condemned prisoner offered her last words with a glaring stare into the eyes of her executioner.

__

"My name is Marlene Angel."

The cold steel of the gun pressed against the victim's forehead.

Amick Hendar pulled the trigger.

__

Click.

The executioner was not surprised. Instead, sadness overcame Amick Hendar as she spoke in a calm tone that was lost in memories.

"I have had my revenge today by beating you. But I do not have to kill you," she held the gun aloft and peered at it, as if it were the first time she had ever seen such a weapon.

Marlene collapsed onto the floor. Her breath came in heaves. 

"I know what it feels like," Hendar went on, "to fight for something you believe in. As if it is the only reason why you live; your only purpose. I had that taken away from me. I have chosen not to take that away from you. I have had my vengeance, but I do not need to spill your blood."

Yuji clenched his eyes and fists. Marlene raised her head from the floor.

"Where…is…my…son," she asked and while her voice faltered there was still strength there. Amick couldn't fail to be impressed.

"I told you; I had nothing to do with the disappearance of your child. But while I didn't take your son, I do know who did."

Marlene volunteered: "Someone named General Deeves."

Amick was amused: "Deeves was an average soldier who knitted a uniform and calls himself a General. No, he is not responsible. The person you are looking for is Dr. Ivan Gorski. Better known as Professor Gorski."

Marlene was confused and stated, "I never heard of him."

"No reason you should have," Amick told her. 

As she spoke, two of her men brought chairs and helped Yuji and Marlene sit. A third gave Marlene a glass of water. She drank it greedily with both hands, spilling drops to the floor.

"However, Yuji Kaido might have heard of him."

"Not me" Yuji mumbled. He was struggling with the rage inside. 

Amick explained: "Gorski worked at a medical university. He was one of the first to discover the b-cells and the genetic abnormalities that accompany them. He persuaded the World Health Organization track patients so diagnosed.

"He convinced people the b-cells were a threat. When he developed cryogenic technology he pushed the sleeper program as a containment method."

Yuji spoke through clenched teeth: "They told me…all of us…that it was a way to delay the development of disease; temporary while they found a cure."

The Colonel offered. "How does one cure their genetic code? The sleeper program was meant to contain you until science understood _what_ you were."

Amick spoke. "Sleeper facilities were built around the world then filled with patients who were scared into believing they would die if they didn't participate."

Yuji realized: "Like…like prisons. They took away our lives..."

Marlene remembered what Seno Miyagi had told her about the b-cells and the Blue. She relayed: "Then those same scientists unleashed the Blue through their laboratory tests. Lab animals infected with b-cells escaped into the wild and bred with ordinary animals leading to mutations."

Yuji broke in: "And this man, this Professor has…my son? Where? Why?"

"He didn't go to Second Earth. He felt it was it was wrong to run," Amick told them. "Very admirable of him, I'd say. He built a facility in Manitoba."

"That's a big area," Marlene noted. Her voice was still shaky.

"I can not narrow it more than that," Amick said. "Still, I can help you find the location and help you find the truth."

"The…truth?" Yuji asked while tapping his fingers nervously.

Amick replied. "Gorski hired mercenaries, sent them around the world to steal your son...you don't think there's a bigger truth here? If you want to find that truth you'll need to go home. You'll need to go home to Second Earth.

"The High Council had dealings with Gorski. They sometimes sent him supplies and he assisted operations in his region. We had no contact with him since we began the sleeper program. I believe Gorski was against it.

"Still, if you can get into orbit and onto the Training Station you can find detailed data in my old office. I can give you access codes. If I remember correctly, Gorski was associated with a project named 'Second Son'."

The Colonel: "The reactor is probably operational but the last reports five years ago indicated a leak. Take precautions, like a supply of potassium iodide."

"Gee," Yuji said, sardonically. "Happen to have a shuttle we can borrow?"

"This area is full of spaceports, isn't it?" Marlene hoped.

"Most of those shuttles went to Second Earth," said Amick. "However, we had dealings a few weeks ago with a man who has access to at least one shuttle. He controls a lot of resources south of Corpus Christi--the area around Kingsville, about 250 miles from here. You might be able to bargain with him for it."

Amick looked the two over. Yuji was struggling with the demons unleashed by the Double Edge; Marlene was still shaking, if just a little. 

Amick sighed and told them: "You can stay the night here. It might give you a chance to learn about the world outside of your secluded village."

Amick threw a thumb toward Yuji: "He needs rest. Yuji Kaido isn't going to be any good to you until he purges his addiction to the Double Edge."

Yuji started to speak but Marlene interrupted him: "Thank you."

***

The red headed officer was named Sherri Dunner and she became the tour guide for Marlene's group as they stayed the evening at the tent city.

The first thing Dr. Gamble said when he was free from confinement was that they should return to the depot to repair Yuji's shrike. It took a lot of convincing before Gamble accepted the facts.

Those facts dictated that 1) the best place for them was at the camp for the night and 2) the equipment they had brought was gone—part of Amick's vengeance yet a cheaper price than they had nearly paid.

The second order of business was Yuji. 

Sherri Dunner showed Marlene and Yuji to quarters inside the terminal building. There she helped get Yuji into a cot under warm blankets. The camp's medical officer gave Yuji a tranquilizer.

After Yuji fell asleep Marlene joined Dunner on a walk around the area as the sun set. Marlene was impressed with what she saw. These weren't just survivors living day to day; they were people finding community and family.

She saw a group gathered around a fire singing old folk songs accompanied by an acoustic guitar. Darren Moss and Denise Karr had found their way to this group and were in on the singing and dancing. 

Marlene saw a makeshift puppet show that held the attention of a horde of giggling children, the sound of which made Marlene miss Takashi's laugh. 

She witnessed two elderly men playing dominoes; a young couple strolling hand in hand; and a woman obedience training a striking black and gray dog.

She also noticed that, in all of these scenes, rifles or handguns or armor shrikes were never too far away. But they didn't dominate the scene.

"This is amazing," she commented to her guide. "Everyone seems so…well they seem so happy."

Sherri Dunner—little more than a teenager—explained: "It ain't all rosy, but people find a way. It's better than living in those tin cans."

"How do you survive? Do you just keeping moving around?"

Sherri nodded, "Even now we have scouts looking for the next spot. They'll look for food supplies, water, fuel—that type of thing. Sometimes we go back to the same places twice if there was good hunting or fishing."

"We didn't move much, in the village," Marlene told her. "We had everything we needed there. We also thought we were safe."

Sherri was kind but blunt: "You can't hide from the world."

"What's the world like?" She asked Dunner.

"Now that's a tall question. I haven't seen it all. Not yet. Some places people are coming back. Most places are nothing but dead space."

"And the Blue?"

Sherri shrugged: "No big nests. Rumor has it your man did something that sent them packing. They're out there, the way bears and wolves are out there. But Yuji was right; the Blue war is over. Now the war is on famine and disease."

"And each other."

"Yep, sometimes that, too," Sherri agreed.

A familiar voice drew Marlene's attention. It was Captain Junker. He had an audience that ranged from old women to young kids.

"…Between me and the dropship there be two springworms. Ever see a springworm? Ugly as my ex-mother-in-law. So, I grab my pistol and…"

After moving on Marlene asked: "Are you ever going to settle in one spot?"

Dunner answered, "That'll be up to Amick. I'm sure we will, someday. But I hope not too soon. I'd like to see more of the world. 

"I used to sit in my quarters on Second Earth and look out the portal at this big blue ball. I dreamed about what might be down there—not just the bad things, but things like waterfalls and trees and big long beaches by the ocean."

"Have you found those things, yet?" Marlene asked as they stopped near a large tent where food was cooking.

Sherri considered, "Some of them, yes. But there's more I want to see. More I want to do before we 'grow roots,' as Amick says."

There was silence for a moment, then Sherri said, "I was told to tell you that we're going to give your team a carrier truck and armor shrikes. They won't be our best stuff, but it'll be enough to get you to Corpus Christi. For now, you should grab some chow and get some rest."

"Rest? I can't see how."

But Marlene did find rest. She found it after gorging on roast pig and potatoes and a few swigs from a keg of wine. 

She found it after spending time with young Sherri Dunner and seeing an echo of herself from long ago. But unlike the young Marlene Angel of years past, Sherri knew how to smile and laugh—but could put a bullet between your eyes.

She wasn't two people; she was one person who had found a way to make both sides of her coin live together. Marlene envied her.

Later Marlene returned to Yuji's side. At first Yuji tossed and turned as he drained the influence of the Double Edge. After a while the two slept peacefully through the night, side by side, feeling safe but knowing it was temporary.

Like being in the eye of the Hurricane.

***

The carrier truck was old—plenty of dents. Yet it also had plenty of weapons on board as well as two armor shrikes. 

One was a beaten old Bullseye almost identical to the one Marlene had piloted on the day she had pulled Yuji Kaido from the treatment center in Japan.

The second was a two-seat Grapple modified to carry a main gun. It was in better condition but the usefulness of a Grapple—particularly in a post-Blue environment—was questionable at best. 

Grapples were built for literally wrestling with Blue, usually in an effort to expose the core to sharp shooters. They also were great for cargo loading or delivering ordinance to front line troops. Nonetheless, it wasn't as useful as better armed shrikes and that was probably why the Orphans parted with it.

They paraded out of the Houston Airport to a few cheers and waves—some of which came from Sherri Dunner who saw them off. Then they followed route 59 until they came to Houston, which they circumvented on old I-610. 

Houston was a site none of them wanted to see. 

As they drove the beltway around Houston they spied the remains of nests high in the few skyscrapers which were intact. They saw toppled apartment complexes and sports arenas torn to bits by either blue rampages or artillery fire.

Junker could almost see the ghosts of battle; could almost smell the stench of the dead; could almost hear the relentless rush of the Blue or the frantic orders from officers as the lines broke, reformed, then broke again.

He had not fought in Houston but he had fought in cities like it: cities of terrified civilians who looked to their military to save them but found broken soldiers and confused commanders who could not believe that _bugs_ were crashing through their smart weapons and battle plans and defensive perimeters.

Leaving Houston behind wasn't much better. The names on the exit signs changed but the site was essentially the same. 

Wharton? A pile of rubble. El Campo? Burned, maybe from ignited gas lines. Edna? Victoria? Sinton? Blue nests—now apparently empty but once, long ago, they had thrived on top of the bones of their human victims.

Long stretches between the cities were dotted with refineries and supply depots. They saw two launch catapults, both damaged to the point that even if they had had shuttles (which they didn't) they would be useless.

It took them almost nine hours to reach Kingsville: dodging the wreckage of civilian cars, flattened Abrams tanks, and skeletal Blue carcasses (by the thousands) slowed them considerably.

Marlene thought about how Amick's Orphans were cutting a life out of all this. And they were happy about doing it. Yet they had no illusions about being safe—the illusion that Marlene had lived under in the village.

Meanwhile, Yuji seemed to have beaten the influence of the Double Edge. The rest and the forced separation from that shrike had done the trick. Yuji looked a fatigued, but his body had been exorcised. 

***

"Well let's see if this junk works," Darren Moss said glibly as he sat in the tactical seat in the carrier truck. 

They were just hitting the outskirts of Kingsville. Gunther was behind the wheel with Marlene and Yuji in front—Denise Karr was doing a systems check on the shrikes (for the third time) and the others were resting.

The computer screen buzzed to life. 

"Let's see here…" he punched in commands on the keyboard.

"What…what the…" Moss stammered for words.

"What's wrong, Moss?"

"Boss, you gotta look at this. Look at the bio-magnetic sensor."

Blue gave out bio-magnetic energy. It was one advantage the humans had—they could usually get a good read on the Blue from a short distance which meant that Blue attacks were seldom a tactical surprise. 

Most sets of Second Earth battle armor included bio-magnetic sensors on their forearm-mounted computers. These would offer a beep and a flashing light when blue approached. More sophisticated scanners—like on shrikes or in the carrier truck—could actually show dots indicating the position of individual Blue.

Marlene walked to the console. As she did, the sound of everyone's battle armor "beeping" echoed through the truck.

"Holy shit, boss," Moss was at a loss for words.

The screen was filled with Blue dots—hundreds of them.

Then the screams filtered into the truck—human screams. 

"Where? Where are they?" Marlene tried to read the display as she spoke.

"Every-friggin' where!" Moss cried out.

They had just entered Kingsville—a quaint tourist town built on the Wild Horse Desert of southern Texas. The main drag had old antique shops, souvenir places and restaurants. All closed for a very long off-season.

"Problem?" Yuji asked.

"Problem?" Moss was in shock. "We got one big fu—"

Marlene cut him off: "Blue. Lots of them."

A mother and two kids ran around a corner fleeing an unseen attacker.

Marlene acted, she didn't think. She grabbed a rifle and exited. 

Yuji did think. He headed to the cargo area of the carrier truck.

***

The fleeing people saw Marlene and headed toward her. A second later a Blue—a chopper—followed them around the corner.

Marlene fired. Her shots bounced off the chopper's shell like pebbles. But she was an expert marksman and she was patient.

Finally a round found the exposed core and the monster dropped.

"Come on!" Marlene shouted at the humans. "Get in the truck!"

The woman said: "Can you kill the other one? It's attacking our people!"

Marlene was confused: "The other…one? There are only two?"

A side panel of the carrier truck swung to the ground becoming a ramp. Yuji and Captain Junker came out inside the Grapple.

Marlene pushed the woman and the kids to Gunther Gerhardt who helped them into the truck. Marlene got in the Bullseye and joined Yuji.

"She says there's only one," Marlene relayed but, as she powered up her shrike, her own scanner showed a horde of Blue all around them.

"Scanners show more," came Yuji's voice.

Junker joked: "Must be a bug in the system."

Yuji led them around the corner. There they saw the makings of a community: Shelters, barrels for burning fires, supplies, and more. It was apparent that a fair amount of people called this street home.

A Chopper was rampaging through the middle of it all. The two shrikes moved in.

"Hey—hey," Junker got their attention. "Who is _that?"_

Yuji saw what the Captain was talking about. In the distance, on top of a motel, was an armored shrike. Nothing fancy, just a heavy duty model, the type that had been the workhorse during the last months of the Blue wars.

It stood there, watching but doing nothing.

The Blue regained their attention by charging. Both the grapple—with its customized gun—and the Bullseye engaged. Their rounds tore the creature apart piece by piece until one shot found the core.

It slumped to the pavement. 

No other Blue were around, despite the scanners screaming that they were in the midst of hundreds.

The stranger jumped to the pavement below then sped toward them. 

Yuji, Marlene, and Junker braced for combat while the carrier truck arrived on the scene.

The armor shrike stopped in front of them. The pilot was not in full body armor nor masked. He was a strong looking man; black and well built but not big—he appearing solid more than anything else.

The newcomer looked at the dead Blue then at his opposites.

"And who do we have here?" The man asked.

"My name is Yuji and this—"

"Yuji Kaido? That's it, isn't it? Things just got interesting around here."

"You know me?" Yuji asked.

The man in the shrike answered: "My mother named me Farrow. It seems we have something in common, Yuji Kaido."

"What's that?"

"We're both sleepers."

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

10. Overlord

Captain Junker: "There's something wrong with this place. The scanners show hundreds of Blue that aren't there…that Sleeper guy and how he looks at Yuji…wait a second…are those Blue eggs? What are they doing—oh my God… What is going on here?!"


	10. 10 Overlord

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

10. Overlord

The carrier truck followed Farrow's heavy duty shrike. Inside were Yuji and Pistol Jones with Captain Junker at the wheel. These three had accepted the invitation of Farrow to meet his boss—someone named Estes. The invitation was for an overnight stay at their compound.

Apparently this Estes was the man Amick had dealt with, the one who had control in the region. That region consisted of settlements scattered about the area. Farrow would not say much more than that other than to explain that there was a Blue nest to the southwest.

Marlene, Denise, Gunther, Gamble, and Moss stayed in Kingsville. They kept both armor shrikes when Farrow assured safe passage for Yuji's team.

Denise was spending her time re-calibrating the scanners. They were still showing lots of Blue when there were none to be seen. Everyone turned off their personal sensors otherwise the beeping would've driven them nuts.

In any case, Farrow led as they moved west of Kingsville into an industrial area. Most of the structures were now piles of rubble or empty frames.

At the end of the industrial area, next to the unmistakable silhouette of a launch ramp, sat what looked like a gigantic white box displacing several hundred square yards and rising some five stories into the air.

Pistol Jones said: "Looks like buddy got himself a 'Roach Motel'."

"A roach motel," Junker agreed. 

Yuji understood that the two men knew something he didn't.

Jones chuckled then tried to explain as they closed on the ugly fortress.

"I think they was officially called a 'Pre-Fabricated Defensive Strongpoint' or something like that. But everyone called them roach motels."

Junker went on: "You never hear of a roach motel, Yuji?"

"Yeah," the Sleeper said, still confused. "A small box that attracts cock roaches then they got stuck inside and die. But I don't get it."

Junker said, "Well this thing here is somet'in they came up with the last couple years of losing to the Blue. A pre-fabricated base. You air lifted it piece by piece on Chinooks, put the pieces together, and poured concrete in em'. An instant hard-point to protect a space port or city or somet'in."

"So the Blue were like roaches? Got stuck in them?"

"No," Pistol Jones chuckled. "The poor bastards who got assigned to these felt like roaches. The whole thing is airtight so the Blue could crawl all over them and not get in. The walls were coated so the Blue couldn't eat them. The idea was you could hunker down and pick 'em off. Blue don't have explosives."

"Problem was," Junker explained. "The Blue damn well have patience. You prayed you didn't get over run while working in one of these. Cause once you were trapped in there was no gett'in out. The Blue just waited out there." 

Pistol asked. "You ever serve in one, Cap?"

"Six months," Junker answered. "Outside of Philly trying to keep the Blue from gett'in to Jersey. We called ourselves the AC Expressway Toll Booth.

"I was the operations officer, in charge of the base defenses. I was the guy who got to push the button to seal us all in. Everyone really liked me."

A massive front gate was the only visible feature on the smooth walls. The gate opened vertically as they arrived.

In front of that gate were guard stations with sentries who looked more like refugees than soldiers (no battle armor, no discipline). They were armed with older automatic weapons, such as Colt M-4 assault rifles and HK MP5s.

Junker found that unsettling. 

Inside, the roof panels were open allowing the evening sun to shine on the empty helipads and the series of bland buildings.

---

"Lots of malnutrition here," Dr. Gamble told Marlene as they strolled the main street. "Plenty of minor illnesses. But over all—well, they're alive."

The Kingsville people reminded her of the pitiful survivors they had found in Seoul during the Gran Seil mission.

Like those in Seoul, these villagers didn't want anything to do with Marlene and her people, even though they had saved them. Even though they were standing guard with two armored shrikes and weapons to beat back any further Blue attack. Even though the doctor was offering medical help.

Marlene didn't sense ingratitude. She sensed fear.

They approached Denise Karr who was practically upside down inside the pilot's seat of the Bullseye. Moss and Gunther were off on patrol.

"Any luck?" Marlene Angel asked.

Denise's voice was muffled from beneath the control panel.

"Nothing. The sensors are still going crazy," she said. "I've run a diagnostic twice. It's not the scanners."

Dr. Gamble sarcastically offered: "Maybe it's ghosts of the Blue."

---

Rico Estes had converted much of the pre-fabricated military base into a gaudy mansion: Beautiful artwork and ornate rugs, not to mention the gigantic oak desk in his huge main office.

Estes was a chubby short man who wore a big smile when the newcomers entered the office. He also wore a bushy mustache that helped make amends for the lack of hair on his scalp.

"Welcome! Welcome my new friends!"

"It's very nice to meet you," Yuji offered then he introduced his comrades.

After the introductions the men were seated around a conference table. While they spoke Yuji took note of the office. There was a large map on one wall with several areas circled. Those circles were then marked with either an 'X' or a checkmark. Most had check marks.

"So my friend, Mr. Farrow, tells me that you are Yuji Kaido, the most famous Sleeper of them all and one of Second Earth's greatest warriors. No?"

Farrow spoke first: "My mother always told me it was best to be humble."

Yuji: "Well that was long ago. Now I'm just a traveler looking for help."

"Then you have come to the right place."

Two girls entered the room and served refreshments: home made wine, water, bread, tomatoes, other vegetables, and more.

"Try the chicken wings," Estes suggested. "Fresh killed this morning."

"Well, Mr. Estes—"

"No! No! 'Rico', please. You embarrass me."

Yuji couldn't help but return the man's big and obviously phony grin.

"Okay, Rico. I am trying to—"

"We need to get to Second Earth," Pistol Jones felt it important to stop Yuji from explaining too much. "And we hear you have a shuttle."

"Now that takes the cake," Farrow said quietly. "My mother always told me not to interrupt others while they're talking. She said that was rude."

Rico grew somber although it felt as phony as his grin.

"I am so sorry to hear that. This is one place where I do not think I can be of help. And I so want to be of help to you."

"You do have a shuttle, don't you?" Yuji was hopeful.

"Si, I do have a shuttle. I used to have four shuttles. Then my men went to Second Earth to salvage. They not return. So I sent a rescue shuttle because I cared about my men and that shuttle did not return, either."

"And then a third one…?" Junker led.

Farrow answered: "That one exploded five hundred feet off the catapult. Mother always said to check fuel line integrity before lift off."

Junker took note of Farrow. The man was watching Yuji. Studying him. Sizing him up. It gave Junker an uneasy feeling.

"So as you can see, I have only one left," Estes told them.

"Whatddya say we trade you somethin' for it?" Pistol Jones suggested.

Estes considered. "I regret that I cannot think of anything I am needing."

"I can think of somethin'," Jones finished. "Mr. Farrow here tells us that you've got a Blue nest 'round here. What if we go take it out for you?"

"Say, yeah," Yuji jumped in. "We could do that."

"Mr. Yuji Kaido, you have but two of the—what do you call them?—armor shrikes. How could you do such at thing?"

Farrow told his boss: "Mr. Yuji Kaido is the best sleeper ever. I suppose he could burn that nest to the ground with a dirty look."

Farrow's words came across as him not buying the legend of Yuji Kaido.

Estes paused while tension swept the table. Then the man laughed.

"Oh, now you see why I keep him here," Rico said. "Mr. Farrow is a very funny man. Yes, a very funny man."

"We're surprised that there's still a nest around," Junker threw in.

"I could show it to you," Farrow glared at Junker.

Rico answered most seriously: "Oh, but there is. That is why Mr. Farrow is always out on guard, protecting all the people who look to us to save them."

"Mr. Farrow didn't seem too eager to protect Kingsville," Junker noted.

Rico shook his head with sadness: "Yes, this is true. But—what would you say?—we have only limited resources and must use them for people who contribute to the effort. Yes that's it. We must first protect those who contribute."

Junker leaned forward. "Did you say 'contribute' or 'pay tribute.'?"

Rico paused then laughed again: "Yes, yes you see. In the old world there was money, and land, and oil to buy with money and notes. In this world the economy is security and food and water. It is a horrible reality with which I must live. But I must be strong or none would survive."

"I see," Yuji was not pleased.

"I tell you what Mr. Yuji Kaido and your friends. Stay the evening with us and tomorrow we talk again. Maybe we can be of—what would you say?—assistance to one another. Let us talk again tomorrow."

"My mother always told me people think better after a good night's sleep."

---

Attendants showed Yuji and his companions to a recreation area and visitor's quarters. Farrow and Estes stayed behind and spoke for a moment.

"What is wrong with you?" Estes spoke as strongly as he dared to Farrow.

"You look at that man like he is your enemy. He is not our enemy."

Farrow responded, "He's a sleeper."

"Yes, yes of course, like you are a sleeper."

"No, he's the famous Yuji Kaido—savior of the planet."

"Ah, I see now," Estes was disappointed. "You are jealous."

"Mother always said, to be the best you had to beat the best."

"I am a business man. We make deals for that which we need."

Farrow seemed amused: "Like the deal you made with Raul? I don't think you can make a deal like that with Yuji Kaido."

Estes spoke harshly, "I make the deals here. You do what you—"

Farrow faced Estes and his face grew harsh and sharp. Estes faltered.

"I do what I want around here. Without me your head ends up on a stake. Think the people love you? They fear you because they fear _me."_

Estes looked away from his sleeper and nodded. 

He then asked, "I see your head is strong. What is it you intend to do?"

Farrow smirked: "I think I'll take Yuji up on his offer to destroy the nest."

"Oh, I see, you are feeling—what is it?—lucky?"

Farrow answered: "Mother always said that luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I am prepared. This is my opportunity."

"You are speaking fool's words. What opportunity?"

"The opportunity to be the best."

---

There was a full moon that kept popping out from behind the clouds. Its rays added to the light of a fire to illuminate the carrier truck and the two shrikes.

Marlene sat at the fire finishing off a chunk of smoked meat that had been part of the supplies the Orphans had sent along. Gunther was sitting with her. Dr. Gamble had gone for a walk and Moss and Denise were in the carrier truck doing the same thing they did every night. 

A figure—not Dr. Gamble—walked toward them cautiously.

Marlene looked at the figure then smiled.

"Hello," Marlene welcomed.

The woman she had saved earlier that day—a thin, brown haired mother—walked to their fire.

"Hello, look, I'm sorry I didn't properly thank you for today," the woman was carrying a package. "So, well, here. And thank you."

She handed the package to Marlene, turned, and began to walk away.

Marlene saw that it was a basket full of fresh tomatoes and carrots.

"Wait!" Marlene called. "Please come back."

The woman looked about carefully, then returned.

"Why are you all afraid of us?"

"I'm sorry," the woman was ashamed. "When you live here you live afraid."

"Of what?" Marlene questioned while Gunther listened.

"The Blue. If not them, then that dictator overlord Estes."

"Tell us about him," Marlene requested.

The woman spoke quietly, "I have to be careful. His spies are all around. And when you speak bad of Estes you can end up dead."

"Why?"

"There are a lot of small communities, like this one, scattered around this area. Estes expects us to 'pay' him with food and clothes and labor in exchange for protection from the Blue nest."

"And if you do not pay, he come and hurt you?" Gunther suggested.

She shook her head: "No, he just won't let his Sleeper protect you."

"Today Farrow just watched when the Blue attacked," Marlene said.

"Right. We have gardens on the roofs here. He expected us to hand over just about all of it every month—there wouldn't be enough for us. We paid as long as we could and it worked—we never saw any Blue. Then we stop paying and they let them march right in on us."

"Where is the nest?" Marlene inquired.

The woman shook her head. "I don't know—I think somewhere to the southwest. But it doesn't matter—if your village doesn't pay then eventually the Blue find you. Last year a hundred people at the Riviera campground were slaughtered. Farrow—that arrogant jerk—didn't kill the bugs until they started heading toward a village that was all paid up."

"There's nothing anyone can do about it?" Marlene asked.

"Estes' men have all the weapons that count—if they catch you with anything big they take it. They come in here and start taking food and bothering the girls and pushing people around. But they're nothing without Farrow."

"How do you know about the Sleepers?" Marlene asked.

"Farrow brags about how he was one of the first Sleepers in the advanced platoons on Second Earth—even before the Sleeper Brigades. Talked about how many Blue he killed. Talked about leaving Second Earth after the coup. 

"One day a group of travelers came to town and started telling the story of some other Sleeper—someone named 'Yuji Kaido.' Farrow went berserk. One guy said something smart and Farrow killed him. He's a cold hearted S-O-B."

"I see," Marlene noted and suddenly wondered if Yuji was in danger.

"So I'm sorry," the woman said, "that we didn't thank you like people are supposed to do. But sometimes we don't feel like people, we feel like peasants."

---

Yuji woke. It was early morning. He was in a large bed in a guestroom. 

He had been up most of the night in the billiards room watching Pistol and Junker shoot games of 9-ball and tell war stories while smoking cigars.

As Yuji woke he realized two things. The first was that he didn't get enough sleep. The second was that Farrow was sitting in a chair next to his bed.

"Tell me, Yuji Kaido, can you pilot a heavy duty shrike?"

"Huh? Wha--? Farrow? What's wrong?"

"Mother always told me that the only person more foolish than a fool was the one who followed a fool."

Yuji shook the cobwebs from his mind: "What are you talking about?"

"Estes is a fool. He uses the Blue threat to coerce the people to pay. The nest is not big, but big enough that I can not handle it myself. Me and you, Yuji, two sleepers. We could dispose of this problem. And I can get you the shuttle."

"You can get me the shuttle? Let's get Marlene and the others—"

"No. Mother always said if you want something done right, do it yourself."

Yuji told Jones and Junker to return to Kingsville. He told them what he was doing. Junker was not happy but it was obvious Yuji had made up his mind. 

The Captain, however, had made up his mind about something else. 

He had made up his mind that all the luxuries in Estes' home were not right. He had made up his mind that two Blue travelling so far to attack a group of people who coincidentally had not paid their tribute was not right. He had decided that malfunctioning scanners and Farrow's obvious obsession with Yuji Kaido were not right either.

He had also decided that it wasn't right that Estes' men—who were so worried about this Blue nest—would be armed with M-4s and Mp5s. Those guns weren't made for killing Blue; they weren't high powered enough.

But they were great at killing people.

So Yuji and Farrow watched two men get into the carrier truck but as it left the "roach motel" only Pistol Jones was on board.

---

William Junker had spent six months living and working inside a facility identical to Estes'. And while that had been many years prior, he still knew the layout like the back of his hand. He still recognized the dormant computer terminals and he was certain he would still recognize the systems in them.

Yet as he stealthily moved through the facility (it was easy to avoid the lazy guards most of whom were sleeping) he found something that hadn't been a part of his "AC Expressway toll booth".

It was a tunnel large enough for a truck to pass through leading down.

He followed it. It was silent and dark.

The tunnel led to a large natural cavern, probably left over from some ancient glacier that had cut through the Wild Horse Dessert hundreds of thousands of years before.

The natural cavern had been converted into a man made facility.

Junker crept into the area and took refuge behind a pile of fuel drums. 

From his vantage point he could see a series of sealed chambers, control panels, what looked to be chemistry or medical stations, and storage racks.

Other closed doors led off to other areas of the sub-level.

When he was sure no one was around, he crossed the open ground and approached the doors—like garage doors—of the chambers. Each had a very small viewing window.

The chamber was well lit on the inside and the door felt cold as if it were a refrigerated room.

Captain Junker saw why. The chamber—cast in a turquoise glow—was full of Blue eggs.

****

NEXT FACTOR: 

11. Clues

Thug: "Well look at this tough little blondie…all hard on the outside…but I bet you're nice and soft on the inside…me and the boys here, we're fix'in to find out 'bout that…"


	11. 11 Clues

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

11. Clues

_Blue Eggs? What is going here?_

Captain Junker was forced into hiding before he had a chance to peer into the other rooms. This warning came from the sound of vehicles descending the ramp toward the cavern.

Junker got behind those fuel drums once more.

Two large trucks entered the area. They appeared to have been built on the same chassis as a shrike carrier truck. However, the cargo area looked to have been substantially reinforced.

The vehicles pulled into the cavern and stopped not far from the row of chambers. At the same time, one of the smaller, side doors in the man-made dungeon opened. A thin, dark-skinned man with jet black hair and a mustache appeared from this side corridor. He was wearing a long white lab coat and carrying a clipboard.

A group of Estes' men—Junker saw them as little more than armed 'thugs'—got out of the trucks. They conversed with the man in the lab coat. Based on body language, William Junker had the distinct impression that these men were, to some degree, bullying the white-coated guy.

One of the storage racks in the area was full of small silver cylinders; they almost looked like miniature coffee thermoses. One of the armed men reached for this rack but the lab-coated fellow stopped him, seeming to tell him that he wouldn't need it.

This same man then waved his arm at two of the closed chamber doors.

After a few more words the men returned to the cabs of their trucks and the lab coated man returned through the door in which he had come.

Things happened slowly and deliberately at this point. As they unfolded, Junker became quite nervous that he had picked the wrong place to hide.

First, a large bulkhead that separated the cavern from the ramp descended and sealed the room. Second, a series of yellow warning lights sprang to life and a klaxon offered three loud buzzes.

Each of the two cargo trucks opened a rear hatch that swung to the ground and became a ramp. Then the doors to the sealed rooms eased upwards. 

Then they came. First one, then two, then three and four. 

Blue. Choppers.

The Captain was sure he was a dead man.

But something incredible happened. The creatures moved quickly into the cargo trucks. Once they were inside, the rear doors on those trucks raised shut while the garage doors on the sealed chambers also closed.

When all that was done the yellow lights stopped flashing and the exit bulkhead opened. The trucks revved their engines—the sound told the Captain that the vehicles were struggling with the weight—then slowly drove out.

Junker scratched his chin. Had he just seen that?

Things started to fall into place but he needed more answers. He knew where to get them.

The man in the white lab coat re-emerged from the side door with his clipboard. He was peering through one of the observation windows when a strong arm grabbed him around the neck.

"Hello, Doc," Junker whispered in his ear as the man struggled in vain. 

"Let's say you and I have a chat."

---

Denise Karr and Gunther walked on either side of the village woman—her name was Celine—as the group discovered main street of the community. Marlene, few paces behind, was lost in thought about Yuji. 

She expected him to return yet this morning but she was still nervous. Things weren't right in this place and, based on what Celine had told them the night before, this Farrow might be dangerous. Especially to Yuji.

So Marlene wasn't paying attention to the conversation.

Marlene did find herself paying attention to three men making their way through the area. 

Now there were a couple of dozen people around. Some were cleaning the mess left from the previous day's attack; others were displaying food, clothing or other items they were willing to barter for. 

But these three men were walking with an obvious purpose. 

One was a hairy fat guy, another a shorter fellow, and the third was bald with a goatee. All three were dressed in loose-fitting hand-woven clothes. 

However, they were wearing heavy military boots.

The men had crossed the main street, climbed a bank of ancient brick rubble, and moved off along a side pass.

She could see they were trying to blend with the townspeople but their quick walk and sturdy boots marked them as interlopers.

Marlene, almost subconsciously, steered away from her group and began to follow the three.

She climbed the rubble pile and saw that the side street was little more than an alley weaving between bombed-out buildings and burned structures. There were piles of rubble everywhere.

The men stopped by one of those piles. The man with the goatee squatted and started looking through the mess. The other two began surveying their surroundings as if on watch. Marlene instinctively took cover behind a wall. 

She waited for several moments before daring another glance. When she did she saw the men disappearing around a shaded corner.

Marlene moved forward. The rubble pile the man had been searching yielded no clues as to the purpose of these men. So she moved further, following the way they had come.

Marlene came to a pile of stacked passenger cars that had burned to their metal chassis' decades ago. She circumvented this obstacle and saw that she was gaining on the men. Two of them were a mere twenty yards away on the far side of a small field of the debris.

Marlene's mind raced: _Two of them. Damn it, Marlene. You idiot._

She stopped. She knew he was there. She could hear his heavy breathing. The other two men also stopped, turned, and returned toward her with an unmistakable air of cockiness. One of those two had an automatic rifle pointed at her—he had had it hidden under his clothes.

Marlene was all too aware of how isolated an area it was—a valley in the middle of buildings and rubble. 

The fat man's voice came from behind.

"Well look what we have here."

Marlene stood still but turned her head ever so slightly to see the man. He was brandishing a nasty looking hunting knife and strolling toward her with a big smile. He was missing several teeth.

The other two thugs completed the circle around her. The short one held the gun while the one with the goatee was holding a silver cylinder in his right hand but a side arm was in a hip holster.

"My oh my, ain't you just one tough little blondie. Gotta say, love the ponytails. Maybe I'll keep one as a souvenir," the fat man was next to her. 

She could feel the warm stench of his breath on her neck as he slid her pistol from its holster and tossed it aside.

The short guy, the one with the rifle, was barely controlling his laughter. The one with the goatee appeared annoyed at the interruption but the look in his eyes said he could get used to the idea.

The fat man stood behind her. Marlene didn't look at any of them. She was silent and gazed ahead at nothing. The men may have mistaken the look on her face as the beginnings of a pout; a sign the prey was accepting its fate.

The fat man tapped two knuckles on her upper body armor: "All hard on the outside, ain't you sweetheart? I bet you're all nice and soft on the inside. Me and the boys here, we're fix'in to find out 'bout that. Don't go mak'in any sudden moves. I'd hate to have to cut you...yet."

The fat guy's hands slid along the sides of her battle suit, his hands and fingers groped as they moved. 

She was trembling, that was true. The fat man probably thought it was from fear. Probably thought he had found himself an easy victim.

In reality, Marlene was trembling from rage. But she knew she would have to be cool to get out of this. She stood still and did not react. She stared forward and let her mind and her peripheral vision work.

Her mind saw that the man with the goatee was right handed and he already had something in that hand. Also, his attention was faltering as he slowly eyed her from head to toe and back again.

Her mind also told her that the fat man had stuck his knife in his waistband or somewhere because she could feel both of his hands as they explored.

Most important was what her peripheral vision was showing: The short guy had the barrel of his HK Mp5 assault rifle pointed at her. It was the only thing that had kept her from resisting the fat man. 

"So where are the buttons on this thing, sweetie?"

The rifle-armed man was smiling and chuckling. As he did, the barrel of his weapon tipped downward, more toward the ground and less toward her.

Just a little…then a little more…then…a…little…more…

---

"Where'd Marlene go?" Denise finally realized she had gone missing. 

Her and Gunther were standing with Celine and meeting with a couple of young kids who were asking them questions about all sorts of things.

A burst of automatic gunfire echoed into the area. Everyone stopped, except for Denise and Gunther who went running in the direction of the sounds.

---

The short guy holding the rifle was on the ground, his snapped neck in an unnatural position. His dead finger was still on the trigger.

The fat man had gotten back on one knee; his hands held his groin.

The man with the goatee had managed to get his pistol out of its holster but that was it. His right arm was straight up with Marlene's left hand on his wrist.

Marlene brought two stiff fingers from her right arm into the base of his throat, then twisted the pistol from his hand (it fell to the ground). She kneed him in the gut and then again in the chin when he slumped forward.

He joined his pistol on the ground.

She turned and watched as the fat man bore down on her, his knife ready.

He growled: "Bitch! I'm going to show you the meaning of pain!"

Marlene spoke to her attacker for the first time: "Pain?"

She brought a crescent kick around and knocked the knife out.

"Try…"

She came dangerously close to the big fellow then walloped him with a horizontal right elbow to his cheek. He lost more teeth.

"…having…"

The left arm brought its elbow across, too.

"…a…"

Her right fist found his fat gut with a good ole' fashion upper cut.

"…baby!"

A palm strike finished the job as it pushed the bridge of his nose into his skull. The fat man's snout erupted and he fell to the ground stone cold dead.

Denise and Gunther came running around the junked cars.

Marlene didn't need to look behind to know that the man with the goatee was reaching for his gun. She grabbed the hunting knife, turned, and let it fly.

_THWAP!_

It speared the thug in the heart. He was dead before he hit the ground.

---

Marlene explained to her friends what had happened. 

When she was done, Denise focused her attention on the small silver cylinder the men had retrieved from the pile of rubble. 

Gunther threw his arm around Marlene's shoulders, squeezed, then boomed a deep laugh while calling her by her old nickname: "You one tough cookie, Marks! You one tough cookie!"

Celine arrived and said she didn't recognize the attackers: they could be Estes' men.

Denise had information, however, that startled them all.

She was holding the silver canister. It had a series of buttons on it and lights, some more prominent than others. 

"Look at this," the veteran shrike technician said. "Turn your sensors on."

Marlene and Gunther complied and Denise did the same thing. 

None of the detectors beeped or blinked.

Then Denise hit a switch on the cylinder. Suddenly all of their sensors screamed in panic that the Blue were nearby. 

Denise turned off the cylinder and the scanners went silent once more.

"This is the source of our scanner interference. I don't know how and I don't know why."

"We'd better find out," Marlene said as she looked at the dead bodies of her attackers once more. "Because this place is getting dangerous for us."

---

There was a nest. Yuji followed Farrow directly toward it. 

They were a few miles away from Estes' base. The nest had been built into what had once been a multi-level shopping mall. The shaggy, skin-like material the Blue used to make their homes covered the structure.

Farrow had loaned Yuji a heavy-duty shrike similar to his own. 

As they approached the nest Yuji wondered if he had made a miscalculation. He wasn't in his Double Edge so he would get no battle assistance from activated b-cells. Furthermore, while he knew how to pilot just about any shrike unit this was still a new vehicle to him…a stranger.

However, the two Sleepers approached the large-nest (Farrow had said it was a small nest) without seeing any Blue. 

"Where are all the Blue?" Yuji asked over the tactical radio.

"Patience. Mother always told me—"

"Yeah, yeah, patience is a virtue," Yuji interrupted.

Farrow said nothing but Yuji sensed he had just angered him.

There were many entrances to the nest. Farrow led Yuji toward the largest one. The two shrikes rolled inside.

There were a fair amount of holes and rips in the skin of the nest. This allowed strands of sunlight to shoot through from above. All the holes made Yuji wonder if the nest wasn't very, very old.

"I'd better turn on my sensors," Yuji said aloud over the radio.

He activated his bio-magnetic scanner. It shot to life showing Blue dots all around his unit. Hundreds of them.

"Geez, looks like there's interference here, too," Yuji said.

"I don't use the scanners," Farrow explained. "My own senses are much more reliable." 

The shrikes motored into the center of the nest. This was a wider area with pillars of slime and shaggy skin between the high ceiling and the ground. 

Yuji's knew that the center of the nest should be crawling with Blue. Yet despite what his sensors said, not one could be seen, not even eggs.

"Farrow! Where are the Blue?"

"They are coming," Farrow told Yuji. "They are coming."

---

"Explain that again," Junker insisted to Raul--the man in the lab coat.

"Yes, of course," the scientist repeated.

The two men were still in the large cavern. They were standing outside of the chamber where the Blue eggs were stored.

"When the eggs of the Blue are ready to be hatching they release an enzyme. We have learned to block that enzyme until such a time as we wish this hatching to happen."

Junker had learned that Raul was scared of Estes and Estes' thugs. 

He was scared because they were constantly threatening to kill him.

"When do you hatch them?"

"When Mister Estes tells me to. Or the man named Farrow. We hatch them a few at a time and then the men come and be taking them away."

Junker concluded: "Like when a village doesn't pay their tribute?"

"I believe that is true, yes."

"And you let them do it? You know how many people you've helped kill?"

Raul bowed his head and answered: "I am aware of this, yes. But I have no way of leaving. Mr. Estes will kill me."

"What if I can get you out of here?"

The man smiled at Captain Junker. William asked another question.

"So there's no nest? What about the Blue you just piled into those trucks?" 

"No," Raul answered. "A nest is not far from here. It was deserted but—"

"But what?"

"But Mister Estes' men are taking Blue from here and putting them there."

Junker muttered: "Yuji."

---

Yuji's scanner was so cluttered with signals that it was useless. He switched it off one second before his unit took a severe hammering.

"What the--?"

He turned his shrike and saw four choppers converging on his machine.

"Farrow! It's the Blue!"

Farrow was standing a little ways away, watching. Yuji couldn't help but notice that the Blue were focused on him and paying no attention to Farrow. It was like he—Yuji—was the only one there.

Yuji opened up with his main gun, aiming for the exposed cores. His shrike was sluggish, his aim off. 

The Blue converged.

There was a small silver cylinder attached to the rear of Yuji's shrike.

He fired and fired but the Blue came in closer. 

"Farrow…I need some help here. Farrow! Farrow?"

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

12. Duel

Celine: "We're tired of living like peasants under the thumb of that overlord. We're tired of having our food taken and our town attacked. We're done being afraid. Tell me what you need us to do." 


	12. 12 Duel

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

** **

12. Duel

"So," Junker summarized. "You boys found a way to keep the eggs from hatch'in until you want. 'Course you just hatch a couple and let them make new eggs anytime your supply runs low. That about the size of it?"

Raul nodded.

"Dang, I'm not one for irony but this is deep."

"What is that Mr. Captain Junker sir?"

"When the Blue first started com'in at us way back when some thought they were a bio weapon from some outlaw country. We were wrong then, but now that's exactly what Estes and you are using 'em for."

"Please, Mr. Captain Junker," Raul gasped. "I do not do this myself. It is not just me that Mr. Estes be killing if I do not do this thing. He would destroy my family's village and he does not need the Blue to do such a thing."

"Just that Sleeper fella', Farrow."

Raul nodded.

Junker had one more question: "Now exactly how does one go about convincing a Blue to attack a particular place?"

Raul walked Junker to a rack lined with small, silver thermos-like canisters. Raul held one aloft and showed it to the Captain.

"With this," he said.

---

"Damn it, Farrow get over her and give me some help!" Yuji barked into his tactical headset as he managed to spill the core of one of the four Blue.

Farrow was in the center of the nest, bobbing and weaving between pillars of shaggy skin and sticky goop—the stuff the Blue used to make their homes. 

"Now, there, there, Yuji," Farrow's even tone replied. "Four little Blue should not be a problem for the most famous Sleeper of all."

Yuji knew that four Blue—hell, fifty blue—would be no problem to him in the Double Edge with his b-cells activated. But he was in a standard heavy-duty model and while it was well armed it was also bulky and not in tune with Yuji's reflexes. Certainly not in the way the Double Edge slaved its mechanical actions to the will of a Sleeper's nervous system.

Besides, it was uncanny how the Blue were swarming him. They were in a frenzy. He had never seen anything quite like it. Usually the Blue were methodical, but this group was nearly rabid. And focused on him.

"There is no nest, is there?" Yuji cried as he fell a leaping Chopper. 

Two left now.

"Well just look at Mr. Smarty Pants figuring it all out," Farrow cracked. "And for a while there I thought you'd never get the punch line."

Yuji had seen one other Sleeper control the Blue. That had been Tony Frost and Tony's b-cells had been fully and irreversibly activated to the point that he had become Blue himself.

This was different. Farrow's b-cells were not activated, of that Yuji was sure. He was also sure that Farrow wasn't directly controlling the Blue. It was more as if the Blue were simply more interested in killing Yuji.

None of that changed the fact that Yuji was fighting for his very survival.

Yuji bolted around a support pillar only to find Blue on either side.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because I wasn't just another Sleeper. I was the _first_ Sleeper. Before you. Before Frost. Before the Sleeper brigades."

Yuji managed to score another kill but he took damage to the rear of his machine from the last chopper's mandible. Its strike ruptured a cooling line and the cockpit of the vehicle began to grow very hot.

"I never saw you in training with the brigades or in a Double Edge."

Farrow's voice remained even but a storm brewed behind his words.

"I never piloted a Double Edge. They didn't want me in a Sleeper brigade. Me! Me—the first Sleeper. Do you know how many Blue I killed on drop operations? Just me and a Bullseye or a heavy duty or a Mark IV. I didn't need a Double Edge to kill Blue. 

"Mother always said, don't bother doing something unless you are trying to be the best. Well I was the best, and I didn't need a Double Edge to be it."

"What does that have to do with me?" Yuji shouted.

"So I finally come here. Somewhere where they all know I'm the best. Then along come the stories of the great Yuji Kaido. Now people start whispering that I'm the second best Sleeper."

Yuji's cockpit was hot and steam was clouding his tactical mask. His breath was running short, his arms fatigued.

The last creature moved in and Yuji found its core, dropping it.

"I don't care about any of that," Yuji said. "I'm just after a man who kidnapped my son. I don't want to fight you."

Yuji moved away from the carcass. Farrow's shrike appeared from behind a Blue-made wall. They faced each other at twenty yards.

"Mother always said you can't run from your problems. Well, _you_ are my problem, Yuji Kaido. And now I'm your problem, too"

"Christ, Farrow, this is insane. Why do you want to do this? What would that Mother of yours say about you now?"

Farrow considered—no one had ever turned that around on him before. 

He answered: "Mother always said I'd never amount to anything."

Yuji paused, then tried to reach out one more time: "I'm sorry—"

Farrow interrupted: "That's why I poisoned her tea when I was eight years old. Little doses for three months. She had always told me if you're going to do something take your time and do it right."

Farrow hit his accelerator and charged at Yuji Kaido with guns blazing.

---

_Pitiful._

Captain Junker was thinking about security at Estes' "roach motel." He—an outsider—had ridden in Raul's Jeep across the compound, past the sentries and the sandbags, and off toward the horizon. 

Raul explained that he was, in fact, allowed to stay nights at his village if he wasn't needed. Estes had simply promised that all of those villagers would die if he didn't come back.

Yet that still didn't explain why the so-called guards had let him drive away with Captain Junker in the passenger seat. The only apparent reason was that the guards were busy drinking, playing cards, or sleeping (or all three at once).

Had there really been a Blue nest nearby this crew would've been rolled into dumplings long ago. That was especially true because, according to Raul, the entire facility had only two armor shrikes and Farrow was the only one who knew how to pilot them.

The two traveled across the industrial area until they met Pistol Jones and the carrier truck at the rendezvous point Junker had preset with his comrade. Raul parked his car in the back of the carrier and they raced toward Kingsville.

---

"Like this one?" Denise Karr held the silver cylinder aloft.

"Yes. Yes that is exactly one, yes, where did you get it?" Raul asked. He had just finished explaining Estes' conspiracy. He had agreed to explain only after Marlene had convinced him that they were there to put an end to all of this. 

Marlene looked around at the gathering of people who where in the makeshift town hall. That gathering included all of her crew minus Yuji.

They were speaking with Celine and several prominent citizens of Kingsville; citizens who had been summoned to hear this shocking revelation.  
Marlene sheepishly answered: "I borrowed it from a couple of gentlemen."

"Well, I reckon they're going to be wanting it back, don't you think?" Junker winked as he spoke.

At first Marlene did not understand: "What?" 

Then she had a grin—an absolutely evil grin—and told him: "Yes. You're probably right."

Pistol Jones said, under his breath in a mocking tone: "My mother always said to return stuff you borrow."

Only Captain Junker laughed.

Raul had explained that the item they were going to "return" (the small cylinder) was responsible for attracting the Blue to locations Estes wanted hit. 

The device (which Raul had nicknamed a 'Blue call') utilized the Blue's own biomagnetic energy output against them. 

Every one knew that Blue had been animals that lived in herds and nests. Their biomagnetic energy—that same energy used by Second Earth technology to track Blue—was what held their herds or swarms together. 

Blue received messages and signals through that energy sometimes over great distances. That is why a Second Earth unit might wipe out all the Blue in an area only to be faced with a counterattack from Blue that traveled a great distance to engage.

In many ways it acted as the Blue's communication network.

Solitary Blue—or smaller groups—were naturally attracted to other herds. Part of their purpose in nature had been, of course, to overwhelm mankind. That was only accomplished as part of larger groups.

From what Raul could tell, whatever it was Yuji did five years ago it resulted in a natural change in the Blue's biomagnetic message. Now instead of telling Blue to merge into bigger groups it told them to disperse or even commit mass suicide. He had even seen larger groups of Blue divide and kill each other off.

However, Raul had duplicated the old biomagnetic message and, at Estes' bidding, used it to attract the small groups of Blue kept in their "zoo" first into transport trucks then to head toward certain areas.

One negative side effect (or positive from Estes' point of view) was that this old message conflicted with the new natural message. This meant the Blue who were attracted to the cylinders also became agitated, very unpredictable (as if they ever were predictable), and even more violent than usual.

Had Raul developed the technology back during the Blue wars perhaps it could've made a difference, although Raul did not think so.

He had told them that what he had learned about the Blue was that, had this device been used on a large scale, the Blue simply would've adapted. Like spy agencies changing codes once one has been broken.

In any case, Marlene suggested to the Captain: "Sounds like you have an idea."

"Yep," Junker answered. He then looked about at the group of Kingsville leaders. "But we'd need some help to make it happen."

Celine conferred with her townspeople. There were nods of agreement coming from faces that burned with anger. How many of their people had they lost to Estes' game? How much had they had to put up with from his thugs?

Celine told Captain Junker: "We're tired of living like peasants under the thumb of that overlord. We're tired of having our food taken and our town attacked. We're done being afraid. Tell me what you need us to do."

Junker politely looked at Marlene. She was in charge and he wasn't going to do anything without her blessing. He would not usurp the chain of command.

She gave him a slow, deliberate nod of approval.

"Okay then," the Captain said. "Listen up."

---

Yuji skated his armor shrike behind one of the many pillars that supported the massive central chamber. The rounds from another of Farrow's volleys missed by a close margin.

Yuji kept moving, trying to stay out of the line of fire. It was more than just not wanting to fight Farrow. The fact was that Farrow was a sharp pilot and Yuji, as good as he was in the Double Edge, did not have the experience with Heavy-Duty models his opponent had. The odds, in other words, were against Yuji.

What hurt those odds even more was the state of Yuji's ride. The cooling system had been damaged so the whole vehicle was becoming hot--not only the cockpit environment, but also the engine, the servos, and the electrical insulation.

Soon things would start to malfunction.

Yuji figured he did have one advantage: Farrow's over confidence. 

"Yuji, Yuji, Yuji," Farrow spoke as he searched the shadows for his prey. "This is a very big disappointment. I thought you would fight better than this."

"So why didn't you make it into the Sleeper brigades, Farrow?" Yuji's voice came over the radio but his shrike was no where to be seen.

"I see. That's how it is, then? We'll have a nice heart to heart chat?"

"Sleeper to sleeper," Yuji struck back.

The afternoon was growing late. The sunbeams that were breaking through from the gaps in the ceiling grew less brilliant, becoming dim spotlights highlighting precious few areas between vast stretches of dark.

Farrow turned on his infrared. He was not wearing a battle uniform, let alone a helmet, but there was a secondary infrared display on the console. 

Yuji's shrike stood out brilliantly on that display.

Yuji also tried to utilize his infrared. It was not operational. Whether that was due to the cooling system damage, neglect or sabotage Kaido did not know. 

"I spy something that begins with 'Y'," Farrow played.

Yuji understood that Farrow was tracking his hot shrike when the shrapnel splattered across the front of his cockpit. Yuji scooted behind a wall that provided cover from shots but the infrared could see right through it.

"I piloted a Double Edge. Why not you, Farrow? Why didn't they want you in the Sleeper brigades? Are you afraid to tell me?"

Farrow did not respond. He moved his shrike slowly through the debris as he arrowed in on Yuji's craft.

"I'll tell you why," Yuji decided to bait Farrow. 

"You didn't have what it took, did you? Oh you could kill all right. But you didn't do it to win the battle; you did it to outdo everyone else."

"Another 25 cent psychologist. I have met my share of those."

Yuji opened a side panel on the console marked "Countermeasures". There were series of switches with lights inside. All the lights were green.

"Even when my b-cells were taking me over I was doing it all to beat the Blue. I was violent and out of control. But all to beat the blue. You were violent and out of control but all to prove something to everyone else because you've never been able to prove it to yourself."

WHAM! 

An explosive tipped shell burst to the side of Yuji's cockpit. He powered away as fast as he could. An alarm code on the console warned Yuji that an 'overheat failure" was imminent in the primary drive motor.

"And what scared them in the High Council is that you were like that before your b-cell were even activated, weren't you? You never got in a Double Edge because YOU COULDN'T HANDLE IT."

Farrow growled: "You need to be shutting up now."

More shots rang at Yuji as Farrow moved in tracking his enemy on the infrared console display.

Yuji made his move. He allowed Farrow to get within a few meters; he allowed the shots to ricochet off the cockpit.

Yuji Kaido then hit the countermeasure switch labeled "heat defeat."

A shower of flares and chaff bounced out from the chassis of the shrike. In most cases the display was meant to defeat missiles or weapons that used heat-seeking technology.

In this case the sudden display not only blinded Farrow's eyes but also overwhelmed his infrared scanner.

Farrow had quick reflexes, though. He reversed his shrike to avoid any shots headed his way. But none came.

He let his eyes adjust and he saw the large profile of Yuji's shrike on the infrared again. It was speeding away toward the exit tunnel.

Yuji's voice came over the radio headset.

"I'm not going to fight you, Farrow. _You're not worth my time."_

Farrow's rage burst like a thunderclap. He accelerated full speed in pursuit of his enemy. His main weapon fired, and fired, and fired. 

The rounds raked the back of Yuji's shrike until one hit a critical system. A series of small explosions flickered in the chassis as the shrike halted. Then a larger explosion sent burning plasma through the entire vehicle. The arms and other debris disintegrated away from the main body. That body fell over forwards, a smoking ruin.

"So much for the legend."

Farrow kneeled his heavy-duty shrike and left the cockpit. He was showing more emotion than he had in years. A smile stretched from ear to ear.

He spoke to the melting hulk of metal.

"Well, now we know who the best Sleeper is."

"That would be _me,_" the voice came from behind.

Farrow turned. Yuji Kaido was standing there holding his side arm. Yuji had a good size cut on his cheek from when he had hit the ground after bailing from his failing armor unit. That exit had been masked by the burst of flares.

"How. How can you possibly be better than me?"

Yuji answered him: "You fight just to fight. I'm fighting to save my son. That's why I am better. That's why you lose."

"Damn. Mother always told me to be a gracious loser."

Farrow tipped his head with a smile.

Yuji shot him dead.

**__**

NEXT FACTOR: 

13. Revolution

Junker: "Being in here brings back some bad memories. But they could've been worse. They could've been nightmares. What say you and I start making some nightmares for Mr. Estes and his boys?"


	13. 13 Revolution

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

13. Revolution

The sun was down and still no Yuji. No sign of Farrow, either.

News traveled fast through the village and to the entire region. Everyone was on pause, waiting to see who would return.

If it were Farrow, then Marlene figured holy Hell would be unleashed upon the villagers.

If it were Yuji, then that might change things.

They sat by their campfire.

"I'm not sure we should do this," Dr. Gamble told the group.

They were all there except for Yuji.

Furthermore, Celine had sent runners to the other villages to warn those who worked in Estes' compound to skip work in the morning.

Gamble explained: "We could just take the shuttle. There might be a fight but the way the Captain describes these thugs we could easily best them."

"No way," Moss spoke up.

He was sitting next to Denise with his arm around her. They were two people who had rarely spoke back at the village—barely knew each other. Yet the adventure had brought them together.

It reminded Marlene, on some level, of her and Yuji.

Moss went on: "I couldn't sleep if we didn't do something. Like you said, these guys are pushovers. We might as well push them over for these people. We do that and these folks will live like we do. They deserve that chance."

Gamble and Moss were about to start arguing but Marlene distracted them all with a simple question: "Why are any of you here?"

They looked at her, dumbfounded.

She made her point, "With every thing that's been going on—it all moved fast. I asked for volunteers and all of you came but I never stopped to think about why. You didn't have to. I also never said thank you. So let me say it now."

Marlene fidgeted. They all knew she was thinking about Takashi and Yuji.

Pistol, his twin guns on shoulder straps over his light armor, spoke first.

"I'm here 'cause of Ted," he referred to the only other Sleeper who had been a part of their return to Earth. Ted had been killed by some horrific creature in the Cavern of the Earth. A creature they all figured was the ultimate evolution of Blue—one without a core.

Yuji had killed it but not until after it had decimated the whole team—except Marlene—that he had taken with him into that cavern.

Pistol completed: "I told him when he asked that I'd have to come because 'you boys from Texas couldn't find your ass with both hands.' So I came. We lost him, but I found a life. I owe that to him and to Yuji and you, Marlene."

"You left a family behind," Denise pointed out.

"Naw," Jones told them. "I got that family right here," he tapped his heart but he also meant the people around the fire. "Besides, how could I ever look my boy in the eye if I didn't help get Takashi back?"

Gerhardt snarled: "Someone messes with Marks, they mess with Gunther. When I get hands on those who take Takashi…" he choked an invisible throat.

Junker threw in his two cents: "Whenever I would tell a story, Takashi always listened to every word—"

Marlene glared at him.

Junker clarified: "Only the nice stories, don't worry, mom. But he'd ask all these questions. He wanted to know every little detail. I don't know if y'all noticed, but Takashi, he's one smart fella.

"But Marlene," he change directions. "Gotta figure that all of us would'a rotted away up in them damn metal boxes if it weren't for you. I don't know if you noticed, but we'd follow you straight to 'hell to kick the Devil's ass if that's what you wanted."

"Here, here," came a chorus and Moss stuck his hand out. One by one the assembled group piled their hands on and squeezed tight.

The unmistakable whirring of a shrike interrupted the group.

They all stood. Marlene took a step forward. She hovered at the rim of the firelight. She saw the metal beast glide in. It stopped by the carrier truck and mechanically kneeled. A driver got out.

Yuji walked forward until he could be seen clearly.

Marlene and Yuji locked eyes. So many thoughts and emotions raged between those eyes that words would've just gotten in the way.

Then the smiles started to creep into their expressions.

It was hanging there. Yuji just had to say it.

"Hi, honey, I'm home and I had a hard day at the office."

Marlene bit her lower lip to keep from smiling too broadly.

She replied: "Don't worry, dear, dinner will be ready in a minute. Should I fetch you your slippers and the newspaper?"

They paused for one more moment then dived into one another's arms.

---

Raul headed to the compound in a surprisingly good mood.

As he approached he noticed the guards appeared a little more alert. They even stopped his car as he came to the main gate. Mr. Estes himself was standing there.

"Good morning to you Mister Estes, Sir," Raul said.

Estes was distracted. He was scanning the morning horizon. Just as Raul was about to drive on his boss asked, "Have you seen Mr. Farrow?"

"No Mister Estes, sir. Your men took the Blue Mr. Farrow had requested and that is the last I have been hearing of him."

Estes looked at Raul and questioned: "What about the next batch?"

Raul answered: "I applied the enzyme yesterday morning, sir. They should have been hatching last night. They will be adult size by this afternoon."

Mr. Estes knew what Raul also knew—Blue developed quickly especially when they fed on the protein blocks in the nursery chambers.

Raul waited. He began to feel nervous. Would they search the car?

No. Estes considered Raul an insignificant weakling. He waved the scientist through and stood there, scanning the horizon.

What Raul didn't know was that Estes had sent men to the nest the night before. They had returned saying that Yuji's shrike was destroyed but there was no sign of Farrow.

That made Estes more on edge than if Farrow had been outright killed.

Raul's vehicle entered the compound with Junker hidden in the rear.

---

Marlene put down the binoculars.

"They're in," she said to Jones who was lying next to her in the rubble of an industrial building.

Jones checked his chronometer.

"Tick tock," he said.

---

Raul did his work in the cavern unmolested. He had spent several years as a whipping boy to Estes and his men—they feared him or expected treachery from him no more than a brute would expect his beaten pet dog to revolt.

Junker considered Yuji's story of how he had dispatched Farrow—overconfidence had been his weak spot. That same over confidence permeated Estes' group of brigands.

That was no more evident in how Estes appeared to use the pre-fab defense base he called home. He apparently had no idea that this was a sophisticated military structure. Instead, he treated it more like a castle—big walls for protection.

No one utilized the interior cameras or exterior sensors—they had long since stopped working from neglect or lack of parts. The main security station had been converted into an oversized linen closet, the explosive materials detectors were off line, and the computer terminals were either covered and used as tabletops or smashed beyond repair.

Junker found one such computer terminal. He had to remove the white cloth and vase with plastic flowers to access its components but it still worked (the complex ran on a maintenance-free depleted uranium power core).

He immediately recognized the operating system and began cycling through sub menus until he found the items he was looking for. He checked his chronometer and began his work.

_Like riding a bike._

---

"How many of dem are there?" Gunther asked.

He was in the carrier truck with Darren Moss and Denise Karr.

"Celine says about two dozen," Denise answered.

The group was checking ammunition on their heavy assault rifles, re-stocking rigs, and making sure their side arms were all ready to go.

"I mow 'em down, no problem," Gunther bragged.

"Whoa, boss," Moss reminded him. "Don't worry about mowing 'em down. Just send them running."

Gunther grinned: "Don't worry 'bout dat. I send em' runn'in real good."

---

Dr. Gamble was outside of the carrier truck. It was almost mid morning and he was becoming very impatient and very nervous. He hid it as best he could but he felt as if he had to do something.

At that moment Marlene and Yuji came around the corner of the truck discussing their strategy. Gamble stopped them.

"Yuji, I'm not sure this is a good idea. There is a lot of risk here. What if someone gets killed over this? We should get out of here."

Yuji assured the doctor: "It's okay. Everything will work out."

"I see," Gamble said with the nastiest tone the two of them had ever heard from him. "Is Captain Junker in charge of this mission or are you two? Because it seems to me that this is all his idea. Another story for him to tell at the campfire."

Marlene frowned and answered for them both: "Listen, doctor, this isn't about who's in charge. It's about doing what's right."

"Your son is out there somewhere. Every minute we waste here is another minute he's with whoever took him. Are these people really worth that?"

Yuji: "Hold on a second. Do you really think we've forgotten that? Do you really think our son isn't the first thing we're thinking about? But look around, Doctor, and you'll see this town is full of kids. I can't go on trying to save my son if I don't do something for these people."

"It doesn't matter," Marlene snapped. "It's already begun. If you want to sit this out, go hide in the truck. I know fighting isn't your style."

"No, no it's not," he said. "But it sure is your style."

"Hey," Yuji was shocked. He had never heard Gamble speak like this.

Dr. Charles Gamble realized he had pushed too far. He held his hands up, smiled awkwardly, and told them both: "I—I'm sorry. I'm nervous, that's all. Marlene, I'm sorry."

Marlene walked away saying, "Forget about it," as she moved.

Yuji stared at Gamble for a long moment then he too moved on.

---

Junker met Raul at the rear of the compound behind the waste recycling tanks (they were dormant).

Light was still coming in through the open roof panels but the two men were hidden in the shade.

A few of Estes' hoodlums were wandering about complaining that the maids, the cleaners, or even their bought-and-paid-for female companions hadn't shown up at the compound yet.

Both Junker and Raul had bags slung around their shoulders. Both bags had been full a while ago but now Raul's was empty and Junker was down to his last two of the silver canisters. He had decided to keep them.

"All done?" the Captain asked.

Raul offered a huge grin. It was like Christmas morning to the guy.

Junker smiled back: "You're really enjoying this, aren't you?"

"You bet your boots Mister Captain Junker sir."

Junker chuckled, quietly, and patted the man on his back.

"Nutt'in to do but wait. Won't be long now."

---

Rico Estes went to the front gate yet again. It was now late in the afternoon and he was becoming concerned about his 'ace'.

He reminded himself that Farrow tended to be melodramatic and, to put it bluntly, crazy. The evidence at the nest suggested that Farrow had defeated Yuji Kaido. So where was he now? Estes wondered if he wasn't out desecrating Kaido's body in some warped ceremony.

Still, the rest of Yuji's party was with the townspeople in Kingsville, the place where three of his men had apparently vanished.

Estes decided that, once Farrow returned, he would send a posse there, find out what happened to his guys, and then unleash the next batch of Blue there.

While he really didn't care about the individual men themselves, it was the principle of the matter. Fear had to be maintained. Fear and dependence.

So as Farrow's armored shrike moved into view and approached the compound Estes breathed a sigh of relief followed immediately by a growing anger at the Sleeper's extended disappearance.

_Someday,_ Estes thought,_ I will have to dispose of my ace._

The vehicle whirled at a slow pace straight past the outer sand bags and along the drive toward the main gate where Estes was standing. The Overlord could see, even from a distance, the form of his enforcer in position in the cockpit of the heavy-duty armor shrike.

Estes held an authoritative hand aloft commanding Farrow to stop.

"Where have you been, Farrow? I should have your head—"

The armor shrike did not stop. It continued on a straight line along the driveway and through the open main gate.

Estes was so angry that he paid no attention to the Jeep that exited the compound a moment after Farrow entered it. That Jeep moved briskly away from the 'roach motel' without any of the guards taking note—they were focused on the Sleeper's ride.

A crash came from inside the compound. The heavy-duty unit had fallen over on its side having clipped the corner of the motor pool building.

Estes and others ran to the vehicle and looked inside.

Farrow was in there, all right. But his upper body was covered in dried blood—his dead eyes stared at nothing.

The treaded wheels of the shrike continued to turn.

Estes mumbled, "What is this?"

Gunshots rang out from the exterior of the compound.

Estes returned to the main gate. He saw the same type of sight that had terrified other brutal monarchs in centuries past. A mob of people—his subjects—advancing through the industrial rubble toward the compound.

Most held planks and bars and bats. A few in the crowd had small arms.

Usually this crowd would be no problem. Alas, they were supported by two armor shrikes and several of Yuji's party on foot armed with heavy weapons.

Grenades and explosive rounds hit the outer perimeter.

_What fools,_ Estes considered. _They will not be penetrate my fortress._

"Fall back! All of you men, inside!"

His men on the front lines fired their weapons a few more times then retreated. Estes used the control panel at the main gate to close that door.

He looked skyward at the open roof panels.

"Go up there and fire at them. Drop grenades on them. Kill them!"

Estes and his followers heard something they had never heard before: An alarm ringing through the complex followed by a computerized voice offering an urgent announcement:

"EMERGENCY LOCK DOWN PROCEDURES ACTIVATED."

"What? What is this?"

The roof panels began to slide shut taking all exterior light with them.

A distant explosion rattled the men. The explosion had come from underground. The explosion had come from the underground cavern where they kept their Blue eggs.

"WARNING: LOCK DOWN FAILURE ON SUB-LEVEL ONE BULKHEAD."

---

"Was that it?"

"Yep," Junker looked at his chronometer and answered Yuji.

"How many?" Yuji asked as he stood next to the shrike looking at the sealed compound. Emergency alarms from inside that compound—although muffled by the walls—could be heard on the outside.

The townspeople waited tentatively, wondering if all this would really work.

Raul answered Yuji: "About a half-dozen adults. Another two dozen newborns as of this morning. They'll be adults by tonight."

"And the devices?" Yuji asked.

Junker pulled one from his bag.

"These? Everywhere."

Marlene joined the conversation.

"So everything's encrypted? You don't think he can crack the computer?"

Raul told her: "Miss Marlene Angel, in my years in that place I never saw any of them use the computer. They know not that it even exists, I think."

"They're finding out now," Yuji observed.

Junker said. "'Bout now the computer is kill'in the lights. You have no idea how dark it is in there. They won't see their hands in front of their honkers."

"And the Blue?" Marlene wondered.

"After a long while, with the devices in there, they will kill each other off. That has been what I have seen," Raul suggested.

"Besides," Junker explained. "They ain't never get'in out of there. It was built with the Blue in mind."

"Roaches go in…" Yuji led.

Junker finished, "…but they can't get out."

---

It was morning.

No more gunfire came from the compound but Yuji figured it still wasn't over in there.

He put it out of his mind and met Junker in the launch bay.

"All set?"

Captain told him: "All set. Everything looks good. We can make orbit and the thrusters are in good shape. The medkit is stocked, too, plenty of radiation pills but we still want to limit exposure."

Marlene Angel escorted Celine into the launch bay.

"I wanted to thank you both," she said. "All of you. It's nice to see that someone cared enough to help us."

"If we don't start caring enough to help one another, then none of us are gong to make it. Or deserve to make it," Yuji offered.

"They're learning to use the shrikes," Marlene told him. "A couple of their people have experience. It should be enough to protect them."

Celine wavered and Marlene asked her: "How do you feel?"

The townswoman smiled and said: "Free."

---

The main engines on the shuttle burst to life sending a plume of smoke and fire behind the craft. The fully charged catapult provided additional kinetic energy as the bird raced upwards on the ramp.

The shuttle flew up…up…up…as it slipped the grasp of gravity and headed for orbit.

It headed for Second Earth.

****

NEXT FACTOR:

14. Second Earth

Yuji: "What was that? I heard something moving. They said this station was deserted, but there's something living up here…something bad…and it isn't the Blue."


	14. 14 Second Earth

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

14. Second Earth

The shuttle moved across the horizon of a beautiful blue Earth.

Captain Junker was at the controls. He guided the vessel on an intercept course for their destination: the Education, Training and Drill Facility.

Second Earth had once consisted of three massive space stations around Earth and a large mining and industrial production ship orbiting the moon.

Two of the ships that circled Earth had been destroyed. The medical station had been blown to pieces by explosive-laden shuttles when Tony Frost—a deranged Sleeper—had sent it on a collision course for the Military Station.

Later that Military Ship had been destroyed as the result of rioting among the Second Earther's. At least that's what Amick Hendar had heard.

The debris from the destroyed stations circled the Earth like a jagged ring. It created a deadly barrier of ripped metal, blasted air locks, explosive fuel pods, shredded electronics and even human remains preserved in the vacuum.

Marlene took the navigation seat and kept an eye glued on the proximity sensors. One good hit from a big piece of space junk and the shuttle's hull could be ruptured or critical systems damaged.

The cockpit was tense as they passed through the field of debris. Tiny bits hit the outside causing several subtle _thuds_ to reverberate through the interior.

The Education station was somewhat mushroom shaped with a spiraling stem.

"Okay, let's hope the automatic docking protocols are still on line," Marlene expressed as she operated the shuttle's onboard computer. That computer sent a message to the nearest docking bay to request access.

It refused.

She cycled through the other entrances until she received an electronic "handshake" from one bay. This brought a sigh of relief from the pilots.

The shuttle closed in…closer…closer.

BEEP…BEEP.

WHAM!

The vehicle shuddered and fishtailed to port.

"Christ," Marlene cursed.

The proximity sensor had not warned them fast enough.

"Starboard impact."

Junker wrestled with the controls as the shuttle began to spin.

"Need…help!"

"I'm on the thrusters," Marlene told the pilot.

She used manual override to apply the steering thrusters to attempt to stop the slow turn of the rear quarters of the ship, all while the docking bay loomed closer and closer. They were in danger of missing the dock and crashing into the side of the station.

Junker struggled with the stick while Marlene worked the buttons.

"What was that?" Yuji floated to the cockpit in the zero g environment.

"Space junk…something," Marlene cringed as she applied a series of thruster burns.

"That's it…it's working," Junker noted but it wasn't working fast enough. Their momentum was taking them into the bay nearly sideways.

"Crash positions!" the Captain shouted.

The passengers donned their space helmets and prepared for the worst.

Junker tried to steer the craft in while Marlene hammered the port thrusters in an attempt and right the ship.

Marlene's skillful use of the thrusters slowly corrected the ship's trajectory as it entered into the cover of the massive docking bay.

The magnetic coupling systems grabbed at the shuttle's under carriage and lowered it toward the floor of the bay for parking. One last burst of thrusters did the trick but the landing was hard.

Marlene and Junker looked at each other then collectively smiled in relief.

"Thanks," the old war dog said. "You've done this before, haven't you?"

Her reply came in the form of a smirk.

---

"Well, there you have it," Denise Karr was inspecting the shuttle.

More specifically, she was examining the gash in the starboard side of the craft in front of the wing. The group floated together in the weightlessness of the docking area. That area was well lit in comparison to the dark corridors that led away from the section.

"How bad?" Marlene asked as she peered over Denise's shoulder.

The technician told her: "We lost some hydraulic fluid but that's not the real problem. The problem is that the piece of junk that hit us ripped out the electronic router that controls all the hydraulics for this side of the craft. Without it we can't re-enter orbit and land safely."

"Can you fix it?" was Yuji's blunt question.

"Yes, but it's going to take some time," she answered. "We need to weld the hole shut otherwise the aerodynamics will be shot to hell and we'll lose the heat shielding on re-entry. Then we need to replace the router."

"I hate to break it to you, boss, but this place has been picked clean," Moss surmised form the lack of anything else in the docking area.

"Spare parts could be a problem," Marlene agreed.

"Wait a second," Denise thought of something. "The shrike simulators have the same type of router. If you can pull one from there it should do the job."

"Okay then," Marlene was in command. "Me and Yuji will head for Amick's old office. I've got the access code to her computer. Cap…"

"Yo."

"Take Moss and head to the simulator area—that should be somewhere above us—red block, if I remember. Gunther, get the repair kit from the shuttle—there should be welding tools in there. You and Pistol stay here with Denise and patch this thing."

A sheepish voice came from the back of the group.

"What about me?" Dr. Gamble asked.

Marlene looked at him and said: "What do you want to do?"

Gamble offered: "Why don't I head up to the station command center. It's not far from here. The reactor is obviously still on-line so maybe I can get internal sensors up, something, to help."

"Fine," she told him.

"That reminds me," Gamble said. "Has everyone taken their rad-pills?"

The shuttle's medical kit had contained a supply of specialized anti-radiation pills that were actually much better than basic potassium iodide.

Gamble concluded: "Radiation is bad throughout the station but those pills should keep you safe for a couple of hours. But stay out of the lower sections around the reactor core—according to the shuttle's sensors radiation there is too much to take for more than a few minutes."

Yuji said. "The place is empty. We should be able to get in and out quick."

The group paused for a moment as they prepared to split up.

Denise gave Darren Moss a kiss and told him: "I love you."

It was the last time they ever spoke to one another.

---

Power was still on, that was true, but most of the lighting levels were dim either due to burned out filaments or smashed fixtures.

None of them trusted the elevators and there were no ground vehicles in site (no doubt taken as the station had been abandoned). So they were forced to walk the distance. Marlene figured it would take about two hours each way for them and a little longer for the other two.

Junker and Moss headed in one direction, Marlene and Yuji in the other.

---

Dr. Gamble entered the command center. The lighting was somewhat better in there but all of the control consoles were dark.

He immediately went to work.

Some of the workstations were destroyed—their screens smashed. But most were operational.

He smiled.

---

Captain Junker and Darren Moss had made their way past the flight support center, the officer's conference rooms, and the decontamination chambers. They had climbed a 50-foot maintenance latter to go up several levels; found an alternate route around a jammed bulkhead; and cut through a physical rehabilitation area.

And that was all in the first hour.

They carried flashlights to augment the poor lighting as they traversed a long, tight corridor that--years ago--had been used for maintenance vehicles.

Junker joked, "The way you two are all over each other you'd think you were teenagers again."

Moss laughed as he adjusted the heavy assault rifle slung over his shoulder: "What's wrong there, old timer? Feel'in jealous?"

Junker answered, light-heartily, "No doubt. Let me tell ya' 'bout this drill sergeant when I was a third year cadet. She was so—"

They both stopped.

"Hey, um, Cap, could you shine that light on the wall again?"

Junker slowly turned his flashlight back to a wall the beam had glanced off of just a second before.

"Is that…what I think it is…?"

Junker moved the flashlight around. The wall of the corridor, the ceiling, the floor--all covered in the crimson stain of blood. It was splashed everywhere. It was old and it was dry but it was blood.

The two looked at the scene for a moment. All of a sudden the dark corridors didn't feel like a return to a familiar place. It felt like a dangerous place.

"Must've…must've had riot'in here, too, I 'spect," Junker tried to convince both Moss and himself.

"Yeah, a, sure."

---

"I think you're holding up just fine," Yuji told Marlene.

"That's the problem," she insisted. "That's the scary part. My son has been missing for over a week now. I should be a bowl of emotional jelly. But I'm not."

They were cutting through a large storage room with a high ceiling. It wasn't well lit and it was full of knocked over empty crates, spilled drums of chemicals, and other debris.

It was about the tenth such storage area they had cut through, in addition to a propulsion lab, a series of fuel depots (all probably dry), and a cafeteria.

"That's because you're a doer," Yuji told her. "You know that sitting around and crying won't bring him back. So you're focused. I'm the same way. But why are you beating yourself up over it?"

"Because I—"

They stopped.

Yuji threw the flashlight over what they saw but he didn't need to—the lighting in the storage area was bright enough that they could see what it was.

A pile of human bones.

Skulls, legs, arms, rib cages. All lumped together in a good size pile in the middle of the room. No clothes, no flesh, no muscle.

Just bones.

"Hey, um, Marlene," Yuji stammered. "The Blue—"

"The Blue don't leave bones. The Blue roll you into a dumpling then eat everything—bones, too."

Marlene was suddenly very conscious of the fact that neither of them had brought heavy weapons—just their pistols.

---

"Ya, that does dat real nice like," Gunther admired his work with the welding torch.

It had taken them a while to cut and position the metal patch and even longer to weld. Now they had to apply the special sealant that came with the shuttle's repair kit. If they didn't then the entire area would just rip apart during re-entry.

"Not bad, big fella," Pistol Jones cracked Gunther on the back. A little too hard. Gunther looked at him and Pistol held his hands up and smiled.

"We're not done yet," Denise told them. "And we ain't going anywhere until my man gets back with that router."

"Well let me tell you something," Pistol was serious. "I'll be as happy as you to see your man back here 'cause this place is starting to give me the creeps. Sitt'in out here in this big old bay and I gotta say, I feel like—"

Denise finished for him: "You feel like you're being watched. Yeah," she looked around at the cavernous ceiling. "I feel it, too."

---

Yuji and Marlene moved more cautiously.

_Certainly,_ Yuji thought, _the place is deserted. Those bones didn't have a scrap of tissue on them so they had to be long dead. Right?_

Nonetheless, they didn't speak so loud anymore in case there was something lurking out there.

"Where are we?" Yuji asked her.

Marlene concentrated and told him: "I think we're in one of the dormitory areas. I think we're about two levels from Amick's office."

"Good," Yuji said. "I'm looking forward to getting out of here."

He glanced around to accentuate the point and he nearly missed the shadow moving behind them. Or had he seen anything?

"Mar—Marlene…"

"What?"  
They stopped. She followed his gaze back down the corridor in the direction they had just come. It was a green, metal hall with bulky support beams, lots of air vents, and more broken lights than working ones.

"I saw something."

"Yuji," she explained. "This station is deserted."

A noise. A metal rattle as if an object had been kicked across the floor. It came from the darkness that lay _ahead_ in their journey.

Another rattle. A crash—not too loud; something being knocked over.

But it was closer, this time.

"Um.." Yuji started.

Something was coming from the blackness ahead.

It was moving… surging.

A low rumble? A shuffle? A rolling noise?

It was difficult to tell. The acoustics were horrible and the dark allowed their imaginations to run wild. The only surety was that whatever was making the noise was coming along the corridor directly at them.

Yuji found himself being pushed, by Marlene, through an unlocked door and into one of the dormitory rooms. It was pitch black in there. The only light other than Yuji's flashlight came from the vents open at the bottom of the door they closed behind them--quietly.

Marlene and Yuji pulled their pistols. That rumbling, rolling, sound was very close now.

Yuji realized his flashlight was still on. He cast it around the room.

He gasped.

It was a dorm room. A desk, a compact dresser, a bathroom, and a bed.

In the bed was a bloody gore that might have once been human.

The walls nearly shook with the noise as it was now in the hallway just outside the door.

Yuji turned off his torch.

The rays of light coming in from the vents at the bottom of the door flickered as something—_somethings_—moved by.

Yuji and Marlene heard…what? Voices? Grumbles? Were they words or just moans or something else?

The noise became more of a shuffling. Loud and low at the same time. They could hear a cling and clang as if metal was bouncing off of other metal.

Then the mass—whatever it was—was past the door and the sound began to recede as it continued along.

Yuji looked at Marlene. She was shaking. He realized that he was, too.

---

Dr. Gamble stood in the command center and looked at his watch.

It had been nearly two hours.

He was concerned about timing. They might be ready to leave too soon.

He might have to take matters into his own hands. This, he knew, was his best chance. Perhaps his last chance.

---

Moss, holding a flashlight, leaned against one of the dusty shrike simulators while Junker, who was kneeled over, peeled away a metal cover at the base. Moss' torch was providing the light for Junker's work.

The simulator room was a big rectangle with several of the simulators on one side and a round command/supervisor post on the other.

On days when it had been in use it had been bright and clean. Now it was dark, dirty, and cluttered with vandalized equipment and other ruins.

"Spent a hell of a lot of time in here," Moss said. "What 'bout you?"

"Naww...ouch," Junker explained as he pinched his thumb. "I learned before the evacuation. Piloted a friggin' Mark III for two years."

Junker stood. He had retrieved the router.

"And you're still alive?" Moss joked.

The two men started to laugh.

They stopped laughing.

They were not alone in the simulator room.

On the far side of the room, stretching from wall to wall, was a line of silhouettes. They were featureless and black in the room. To Moss and Junker they looked like they could be human…or something else.

That line began to advance on the two men. Moss, his hands shaking, leveled his assault rifle at the approaching mass. Junker pulled his pistol from his holster.

The line came closer.

The two men saw what was approaching.

Moss screamed and fired full automatic with his weapon. Junker, his old hands shaking, began firing his pistol as well.

The rounds reverberated through the room and along the lonely deserted corridors of the remains of Second Earth.

---

Yuji and Marlene walked through the maintenance shaft. Yuji was certain that a shadow was still following them, peeking in and out as they moved. Marlene was not as sure of that but she didn't know what to think.

The only thing they knew for sure was that whatever was haunting this station it wasn't the Blue. And it was bad.

But they also knew they had to keep moving. They had to get to Amick's office to find those files. To turn around and run now would have meant that all of this had been for nothing.

They moved across a dark, wobbly catwalk. The area around them was quite dark. Marlene figured they were moving through one of the station's power sub-stations, a place where reactor energy was distributed to various blocks.

Yuji was in the lead carrying his light.

"Marlene…how much further?"

"I don't know, Yuji," she was exasperated. Yuji seemed to think that she knew ever nook and cranny of Second Earth. That was impossible. She knew the general layout the way people know the layout of the streets in their city. But to know every alley? Every room in every house?

The catwalk gave way with a metal snap.

Yuji slid down the walk as it fell. Marlene grabbed a side rail. He disappeared into the dark below. His dropped flashlight came to rest on the floor.

When the swaying of the broken walkway stopped, Marlene lowered herself then jumped to the floor using Yuji's dropped flashlight as a guide.

Her thump to the floor was controlled but the impact reminded her that she had had shrapnel taken out of her leg just a few days before.

"Yuji?"

Her answer came in the form of a noise—a dragging noise.

She swiveled the light around and saw what looked as if it were Yuji's unconscious body being dragged between two large pieces of equipment.

Marlene pulled her side arm and followed.

Another noise grabbed her attention before she could find Yuji. It was that same thunderous, rolling noise that told her that whatever nightmare patrolled those dark passages was coming toward her again.

She barely controlled her breath. She could feel her nerves stretch…the hair on the back of her neck stand straight.

She moved between some heavy equipment and followed after Yuji and whoever_—whatever—_had hold of him.

She entered a cramped area, sort of a tiny maintenance room, and her flashlight fell upon Yuji's prone form, knocked out and laying on his back in the center of that black area.

"Yuji?" She stepped forward.

A hand—or something like a hand—clamped over Marlene's mouth from behind.

****

NEXT FACTOR:

15. Fallout

Voice in the Dark: "I don't blame you for not remembering me; I've gone through some…some changes. But I remember _you,_ 2-8-0-5. I remember what you did that day. I owe you."


	15. 15 Fallout

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

** **

15. Fallout

The hand that covered Marlene's mouth was shaggy and weak—it did not feel like a human hand at all. It certainly was not strong.

She instinctively raised her elbow in preparation to strike to the rear. Before she could she was stopped by a pleading whisper from a raspy, voice.

"Quiet…or they will hear us…"

The voice was referring to whatever it was that was moving into the area outside of the maintenance room. The same something that Marlene and Yuji had hid from before.

The hand released Marlene's mouth. She turned and stumbled away from a shadow in the dark until she was next to Yuji, who was laying on the floor in the nearly pitch black room.

"Your light…put it out…" the voice said as it—a shadowy figure—softly closed the hatch to the small chamber.

Marlene turned off the light: The shambling mass outside felt like the bigger threat. That mass pushed its way through the cluttered power sub-station. She could hear objects being knocked over, tread on, and pushed aside.

Whatever they were, they finished searching and moved on.

Marlene clicked her flashlight on again.

First she examined Yuji.

He started to sit, rubbing the back of his head as he did.

"Wh—what happened?"

Marlene brought him up to speed.

"Which brings us to you…whoever you are," she finished.

The figure was in the dark. She could see the outline of what appeared to be a person. She swung her light around to take a look.

"No!" the shadow said. "Do not look at me. I do not wish it. You do not wish it, either. No, no. That would be a bad thing for us both."

Marlene honored his request for the time being.

"Who are you? What were those things out there?" Yuji had a headache.

"We are one in the same," the shadow answered. "Survivors"

"How did you get on this station?" Marlene asked.

The man, in a rough but non-threatening voice, explained.

"How…did…I…get…here?" the man groaned—no, it must have been a horrid chuckle. "I never left. You think the entirety of the station was abandoned? You think there were enough shuttles in all of second Earth to take away every soul from here?

"When the military ship exploded we knew time was short. At first there was order. Then chaos. Pilots became Gods. Armed gangs seized shuttles while others tried to blast their way on.

"A few shuttles tried to make two trips. But sometimes they were rushed at the docks, their crews killed either by accident or on purpose. Even pilots. I saw one mob pull a man to pieces because he killed a pilot. They literally _pulled_ him to pieces. Oh what a sight. What a sight indeed!"

Yuji guessed, "Like a drowning man suffocating the life guard."

"Yes!" the shadow liked the analogy. "Oh it was a glorious moment for all of mankind!" The sarcasm was dripping like venom from a Cobra's fangs.

"The best of Second Earth—the mighty survivors of humanity—slaughtering each other. If only order, not chaos, had ruled. Somewhere in all this the reactor was cracked. Either from neglect or vandalism I know not. But when the rads started rising things got worse. Imagine that. _Worse."_

Marlene was amazed: "You've been here…five years? How many others...?"

The voice spoke: "At first, there must have been twenty thousand of us. Sounds like a lot, but the station felt empty. There were some who organized, built greenhouses to grow plants, rationed protein pills and food stores. There was, for a time, hope."

"Then?" Yuji could almost guess.

"Then we did what humans always do. Greed. Power. Catching one another stealing more than their share. One person thinking their way was better than the other's. So the one big group of survivors broke into smaller groups.

"I, myself, was part of Red Block 17," the shadow said with pride. "We had control of the waste recycling center for almost six months! It was a gold mine! Then Orange Fifteen swarmed us. And back and forth again. Flight Deck'ers, and Command Level'ers, and—"

"Tribes?" Yuji interrupted. "You became tribes?"

"Yes! Oh, you are so smart!"

"You fought wars to control the critical sectors?" Marlene surmised.

"Yes! Yes! And we did it all living in the soft glow of radiation. At first you just got the welts, then your skin starts to feel like it's crawling and your hair falls out like a snake shedding its skin. And I'll tell you, we _were_ snakes."

"But the supplies had to start running out. What about food and water?" Marlene wanted to know.

"Water was never a problem—plenty of storage tanks and liquid waste is recycled," the survivor told them. "Ahhh…but food. Now that's another story."

"Emergency rations could've lasted a year or two I guess," Marlene hoped. "Maybe longer if they were stretched."

"And stretched they are," the shadow said. "All those fights had a convenient by-product. A source of…sustenance. It was all for survival. We all told ourselves that—it was all for survival. There was no purpose greater than the survival of humanity!"

Marlene and Yuji cringed.

"So we fought one another," the voice stayed in the dark, refusing to be seen. "And when there was only one group standing, that group divided again and fought one another to feed from the fallen.

"As the radiation seeped deeper into our minds the lengths we would go to survive warped us even more. Now it is no longer humanity that survives on this station. Those of us who are left are nothing more than demons inhabiting our own hell. A hell that we so neatly made for ourselves."

"And those who are walking around out there…are they friends of yours?" Yuji hoped for some sort of safe passage deal.

"Ha!" He laughed. "I'm the last of Red Block 17. They find me they will skin me and roast me over an open plasma conduit."

"And us? And the rest of our party?" Marlene asked.

"They would do the same to you in an instant."

"Even if we had a shuttle? Even if we could take some of you to Earth?"

"Return to Earth? We are well beyond that, 2-8-0-5. None of us—"

"Do you know me? Who are you?"

The shadow paused then answered, in a melancholy tone: "You would not remember me, and I wouldn't blame you for not remembering. After all, I've gone through some…some changes. But I do remember you. I remember what you did that day. I owe you."

Marlene sighed: "Listen, we are here to help find our son—"

"If he is on this station, you will not want him back."

"He isn't here. But there is information in Amick Hendar's office that can help us find him. Whatever wrong I've done to you, please stand aside and—"

"Wrong?" The Shadow was surprised. "Had you done me wrong I would've let the mob have you. No, 2-8-0-5. You changed my life. You showed more value in my life than I had shown in my own. You showed me—and many others—that there was a better way."

"I don't understand," she was confused.

"You wouldn't remember. It was a small part of your re-education at the hands of that taskmaster, Amick Hendar. But I remember. We were on an N.I.S. infantry drill."

"N.I.S.?" Yuji asked.

Marlene answered: "Nest Infiltration Simulation."

The man who could not be seen went on: "I am code number 3-0-2-2. I was injured in the leg. The rest of the squad ran. But you helped me to my feet. You carried me in your arms through the course. You would not leave me behind even though you would have been disqualified with me. We almost made it, too, if Amick hadn't rigged the simulator to purposely defeat you.

"The whole time you kept saying something about how 'this is how Yuji and I made it through that Hell on Earth.' I have never forgotten that. It was only a simulation, but you showed more care for my life than even I had. You showed me that part of being a good soldier—a good person—is caring about another.

"So when I saw your shuttle dock, I decided that I would return the favor. But this is no simulation."

Marlene did not know what to think.

The shadow spoke: "You have to get to Amick's office? I will take you."

---

"For Christ's sake what—what are these things!?" Moss' rifle was running hot and running low on ammo.

He and Captain Junker had not hesitated to open fire when they had seen the mob of mutated, hunched creatures—creatures that looked all too human—bare down on them in the shrike simulator room. It had been immediately obvious that their attackers were _not_ collecting for the station Christmas party.

Worse still, the mob did not fear death—it seemed as if some of them welcomed it as they charged bullets with wrenches, pipes, knives, and other instruments of attack.

The two men had retreated through a maintenance exit, down a primary corridor, and into a massive empty storage hanger. The creatures—the denizens of the Education and Training Station—followed.

Junker tried to answer: "People? Radiation sickness? I don't know but for God's sake keep firing 'cause they keep on coming!"

The storage room had two large doorways, one on each end, as well as a catwalk that circled the room and provided maintenance access to a large freight crane that sat on tracks on the ceiling of the chamber.

The Captain and Moss entered the room and made for the exit on the far side, only to be confronted with a second mob of the things.

"Oh Jesus—" Moss started to say as the jaws of two sets of the things began to chomp closed.

But Captain Junker was not ready to surrender. He ran toward the side of the storage facility and climbed onto a pile of boxes as the two masses of hostiles entered the warehouse.

"Up! Up!" Junker said as he reached for the catwalk and grabbed hold.

As Junker swung himself on to the walkway above Moss tried to follow. Junker turned and picked off two of the things chasing him but as Moss reached for the walkway one of the boxes he was standing on was knocked from his feet.

Junker reached down and grasped the man's hand as their pursuers reached for his legs.

"Don't…let…go," Moss cried.

Then something unexpected happened.

The mob that had blocked Junker and Moss' exit from the storage area attacked the group that had been chasing them. A fight between the two tribes erupted; Junker and Moss were forgotten and the Captain was able to help Darren onto the scaffold.

For a moment they watched the melee. Opponents bludgeoned each other as they growled and hissed like animals at one another. Junker noticed that some of the wounded and dead were dragged away by the opposing side. He had a scary feeling he knew why.

"What?" Moss was breathing hard as they paused and got a good look at what had been chasing them. "Are these…men?"

"They used to be," Junker observed. "They used to be."

---

"They are way over due," Denise observed as they floated in zero g next to the shuttle.

"We be done wit dis real soon," Gunther spoke of the sealant they were applying to the shuttle's wound. "I think we go soon, too."

Dr. Gamble had returned from the command center. He offered his opinion, "I'm sure they are fine. This is a big station. We should be patient."

"Well, doc," Pistol stated plainly. "My wife tells me I'm not one for being patient and for once I agree with her. Maybe we should go on up to the command center and see if we can get those monitors work'in. Maybe track em' down."

"I told you, most of the consoles are in bad shape—"

"Let me try," Denise, the technician, volunteered as she checked the clip in her pistol. "Doc, you and I will go. You two boys stay here, finish the job, and sit tight. We won't be long."

Dr. Gamble shrugged: "If you say so."

---

3022 stayed in the dark hall while Marlene and Yuji worked feverishly in the bright lights of Amick's office. They had accessed the computer and were downloading data onto a disc.

"Let's see what this says…" Marlene pondered but a groan from outside the door and farther down the corridor suggested otherwise.

3022 told them: "I think they are coming. I think you should look at the data when you are safely back to your shuttlecraft. It is dangerous here."

"He's right," Yuji said. "We've got the whole file. The info has to be in here."

Marlene hesitated but the sound of the searching mass was clearly audible. They had only a few moments to make a clear getaway.

"Damn," she muttered then followed Yuji out.

The man who refused to be seen, 3022, stayed behind them and in the dark shadows between lights.

---

"Well things don't look so bad," Denise commented as she scanned the command area. "Some are dead but we might be able to re-route some of the operations to other controls. Hang on…"

She sat on the floor next to a console marked "Exterior Sensor Array." As she did, she rested her pistol on top of the console then opened a rear hatch on the bank of high tech monitors.

"Maybe I can re-route the internal sensor functions to this console. I just have to make sure this one works, first."

She hit something in the wiry innards that brought it to life. Immediately a repeating 'ping' noise came from its control panel.

Denise stood slowly. She did not notice that her pistol was gone.

She looked at the display on the console.

"Well, we got power--what the..? Hey," she said. "The station's radar is showing…there's an object approaching the station…"

She turned to Gamble with a puzzled look. What she saw confused her even more. He was pointing the pistol in her direction.

"Doctor? Charles?"

The console 'pinged' faster.

"I'm sorry, Denise. I've been hiding something from you and the rest. I feel really bad about it," the Doctor looked at the gun curiously, then set it on a bank of computers he was standing near.

He began to unbutton his shirt.

"But I think I'm ready to share my secret, and I want you to be the first to know…"

He revealed his bare chest.

Denise was confused. She wasn't sure what was he was doing.

Then Dr. Gamble's skin began to move.

Denise saw what he had to show her.

She screamed.

---

Marlene and Yuji moved quickly through a corridor that, their guide had told them, was an access way for hull maintenance. It was dark and dreary—perfect for 3022 to keep his condition secret from them. More importantly, the area appeared free of danger although they knew that could change quickly.

Ahead, in the hall, the darkness was broken by a glow.

Marlene and Yuji, in the lead, walked past the source of that light—an open doorway into an observation room. Inside that room was a large super-reinforced panel of thick glass. The light that filled half of the room came from Earth as seen through the observation window.

Marlene kept walking until she realized their host had stopped.

She turned. She could see his silhouette standing at the doorway, staying away from the light, but looking nonetheless.

"What is it?"

He moved into that room, careful to stay out of the glow form Earth.

Marlene and Yuji joined him there.

"I…often come here…to look…so beautiful."

He held one ragged arm aloft as if reaching from the dark toward the glass. As if he might dare to touch it.

The two visitors followed his gaze. Marlene had watched Earth from orbit most of her life. Yet still…

She turned her eyes away from that blue sphere and studied the outline of the man who stayed in the shadows. She could feel the longing in him…the agony.

Yuji observed Marlene and as he watched what happened, he fell in love with her all over again.

"What…is your name?" Marlene asked their guide.

"Code number 3-0—"

"No," Marlene said. "Your _name."_

"My name? I don't know…if anyone ever asked me that before…my name was—my name is…Stephen."

"Stephen," Marlene spoke in a tone that Yuji recognized. A tone that was kind but insistent. It was the same tone she often used with Takashi.

It was a mother's voice.

"Stephen," she said. "Step into the light."

He tried to argue, "No—I…" but he stopped.

Their host took a hesitant step forward until all of what he had become was cast in the brilliance of Earth's glow.

Yuji could not help but cringe. He nearly stepped backward.

Horrid welts, burns across his cheeks, skin hanging in tatters from scrawny bones, only solitary wires left where hair should have been…hunched shoulders…a twisted form that had at one time been human.

Yuji saw that Marlene did not cringe.

She moved forward and joined their guide in the light. The man tried to step away but she would not have it. She reached out, took him in her arms and cradled him against her chest. Yuji saw two silent tears race from her eyes.

The man who stayed in the shadows began to sob.

Yuji knew that in those few moments Marlene showed this man more compassion than he had known in a lifetime. For those few moments, he was not alone, he was not abandoned, he was not forgotten.

And he was human again…for a few short moments.

Marlene clutched him tightly. "For this to happen…while I lived in paradise, you were living in Hell. What happened here…is all our shame."

Yuji could only wonder how a woman who so often questioned if she even had a heart, showed that she had the biggest heart he knew.

"It's over, now," Marlene told Stephen. "We have a shuttle. You can come to Earth with us."

He pulled away.

"No," he was emphatic, but not loud. "That can not happen. I will not go and I beg you to take no one from this station with you."

"But why?" Yuji tried to understand.

"We are the cancer of Second Earth," he turned to look out the observation window as he spoke to them. "We would pollute that world. We created this hell. We must parish here as an epitaph to the folly of this place—to the notion that man can live without our home. As if we belong anywhere else."

They were silent then Stephen informed them: "This corridor will take you to a junction that leads to the command center. From there you can get to your shuttle bay."

"And you?" Yuji asked.

"Me? I think…I think I'll stay here for a while longer…"

He traced the glass with his hand as if he were running his fingers over the Earth's blue oceans.

"Thank you," Yuji told him. "For helping us."

"Stephen," Marlene spoke softly. "You feel that I helped you once, long ago. Would you like me to help you again?"

He turned away from the Earth for a moment, was confused, then realized what she was suggesting.

His lips curled into what might have been half of a smile: "Yes. Yes if you would. It is a hard thing to do that for oneself, especially after all one has done in the name of survival."

"I understand," she said.

"I just…I just want to look at the Earth one last time. Just to imagine…is it as beautiful as I imagine?"

"It is beautiful, Stephen. The oceans, the green forests, the desert sands and frozen snow," Marlene described. "If you look hard enough, you can see them all, even from here."

Stephen turned to the view again and rested his hand on the glass. He said to them, "I wish you luck on your journey. I hope you find your son."

Marlene quietly slipped her pistol from its holster.

"I hope you find peace, Stephen."

He gazed through the glass at that round marvel sitting in space.

"I think I can…I think I can see it all…just as you described…so beautiful."

A single round ended a lifetime of torment.

---

Red lights began flashing.

"What is dat?" Gunther asked in a frantic voice.

"Oh shit," Pistol Jones recognized the warning klaxons that reverberated through the bay. "The doors are opening. Something is coming in!"

Indeed the main hanger doors began to open. The magnetic field kept the atmosphere inside the bay from being sucked out by the vacuum of space.

A red shuttle with a white stripe entered the bay. From Pistol and Gunther's view it was upside down, landing on the ceiling. But in zero g there is no up and down.

"Who the hell—?" Jones was stymied.

The door to the arriving shuttle opened and weapons fire rained toward the two men. They retreated out of the bay.

---

"What was that?" Moss asked as the two leaned against the bulkhead.

They had felt a vibration through the shaft they had just finished descending.

"Sounded like…felt like…a docking bay door closing shut."

"They leave us here?"

"Not without this," Junker held the electronic router in the air.

"Then what?"

"That's what I'm afraid to find out."

---

Marlene and Yuji were jogging along the hallway. They came to the door for the command center. The two walked in.

"Hello, Marlene, Yuji," Dr. Gamble waved as he stood over the dead body of Denise Karr.

But he wasn't the only one in the room. It was filled with men wearing red and white body armor and holding heavy assault rifles.

Another man was there, too. He had a scar on his face and wore a crimson uniform with four stars on his shoulders.

Dr. Gamble continued: "We were supposed to hook up with the General and his men back in Houston, but that bitch Amick screwed that up. So we had to improvise.

"Still, I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is we're going back to Earth. The bad news is Denise and her friends won't be joining us. But let's be honest, shall we? This was never about them. It was always about you two. So let's get this show on the road, time is running short."

**__**

NEXT FACTOR:

16. Dead End

Dr. Gamble: "Well, Captain, we have to be going so I guess this is goodbye. But don't worry, we're going to leave behind some company for you. Fire all the bullets you want but, if you don't mind some friendly advice, I'd save one for yourself."


	16. 16 Dead End

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

** **

16. Dead End

Pistol Jones ducked around the corner once again, dodging another fierce volley of fire from the cargo bay. The rounds ricocheted off the metal walls of the tight corridor.

The sound of running footsteps echoed along that passage but from the other direction, not from the cargo bay.

Gunther and Pistol were armed only with handguns. They raised them in anticipation of a new threat from the dark regions of the station. They were quite relieved when Captain Junker and Moss emerged from those shadows.

"What the Hell is going on here?" The Cap asked as he flattened his body against the sidewall as more deadly fire reverberated through the area.

"Another shuttle," Pistol explained. "Looks like them fellas from the village, too."

"Ya," Gunther agreed.

"Where's Denise? Where's Gamble?" Moss asked with an emphasis on the former.

"In the command center," Pistol answered. "That's on the other side of the bay from here."

"We'll find another way," Moss stated.

"Okay, let's go," Captain Junker moved them away from the bay in a new direction.

---

There were half a dozen red and white clad mercenaries in the command center but Yuji ignored them and squatted on the floor next to Denise. He put a finger on her throat.She was dead, probably strangled. There were strange round blotches on her neck.

"You lived with us," Marlene spat at Gamble. "We welcomed you."

The doctor was working the main computer terminal.

"Yes, and thank you for your hospitality. Of course, I paid my way by setting broken bones and bandaging cuts. As the only real doctor around, I also had extraordinary access to Takashi and Yuji here. And, as it turns out, you, too, Marlene. So it was mutually beneficial."

"Where is my son?" Marlene insisted.

"All in good time, my dear," Dr. Gamble focused on the computer.

General Deeves—an imposing man—walked to Marlene.

"After all the trouble we went through to leave that Double Edge for Yuji… and he was beaten so fast…I was quite disappointed. But you…I watched you fight when we let you catch up with us at the supply depot. I was impressed. You have earned my respect as a soldier."

Marlene was not flattered. Her eyes narrowed and if looks could kill…

"You kidnapped a four year old boy from his mother; you attacked unarmed villagers with armor shrikes. You have nothing but my contempt."

Deeves did not like the response but he said nothing to her. Instead he turned to Dr. Gamble: "What are you waiting for?"

"I have to lock out the computer," the Doctor said. "Otherwise they'll just override the dock commands from here and we'll be stuck."

The doctor hit a few more keys, was satisfied, then nodded to Deeves.

The "General" spoke into a hand held radio.

"Beta team, status?"

A reply could be heard: "Docking bay secure, standing by."

---

The door to the command center was in the middle of a "T" intersection. Junker's team approached from the stem of the "T" as the door opened and red and white clad mercs came out.

They immediately engaged but Junker and his men were outgunned (one assault rifle among the four). The mercs, Gamble, Deeves, and their two prisoners exited the center to their right, headed toward the docking bay.

When Pistol Jones saw Marlene and Yuji being led away at gunpoint—and when he saw Dr. Gamble obviously on the wrong team--he became enraged. He pulled both his weapons and charged forward, letting loose a torrent of small arms fire.

He instantly downed one of the bad guys then, a moment later, felled another with a perfect shot through the chest. But Deeves himself opened up with a heavy machine gun, one bullet from which hit Jones' left shoulder.

The mercenaries offered suppression fire as their group collapsed toward the docking area. Junker braved those rounds to pull Pistol to cover behind a support beam.

"You think'in 'bout being a hero today?"

Jones clamped a hand over his bleeding wound.

"Next time, partner, stop me from do'in something that stupid."

Moss and Gunther took the lead and advanced as the mercs moved along the hall in retreat toward their shuttle—they had what they wanted.

Moss managed to kill another merc just as they reached the docking bay. But as the good guys tried to enter the shuttle hanger they were greeted by many more enemy soldiers, two of which had massive "street sweeper" heavy grade weapons.

Those high caliber shots produced a thunderstorm of lethal rain. Junker's team had no option but to bid a hasty retreat all the way back to the command center.

---

"He's locked out the controls," Junker said as he examined the main computer. "We can't stop 'em from high tail'in it outta here."

They watched on a monitor as the last mercs entered their shuttle and the engines to that vehicle started.

Moss wasn't listening. He was on the floor cradling his dead lover in his arms.

"When I git my hands on dat doktor," Gunther was muttering.

"Hold on…what's this?" Junker watched the monitor curiously.

The communication console in the command center came to life as Captain Junker watched two robotic arms lower two large crates from the red shuttle's cargo hatch.

The voice on that communications console was Dr. Gamble's.

"Well, Captain, we have to be going so I guess this is goodbye. But don't worry, we're going to leave behind some company for you. Fire all the bullets you want but, if you don't mind some friendly advice, I'd save one for yourself."

The robotic arms retracted leaving the crates floating in zero g. Captain Junker was afraid that he recognized those crates.

The shuttle's maneuvering thrusters fired as the space doors opened. The red shuttle exited the station.

Dr. Gamble offered more information: "We've been working on these babies for a while. Genetically engineered to hunt down human life much better than any Blue. But these aren't just Blue…a good ole' boy like yourself might just call them hounds. I hate to sound so cliché, but you can run but you can't hide."

Two lights on the crates flashed red and the containers opened.

"What in God's name…?" Pistol Jones, still wrapping his shoulder wound, murmured as he watched.

Two creatures, one from each container, emerged. They had some resemblance to the Blue but no core was visible.

They were centipede-like with a thousand short legs on each side and a sharply pointed tail. They were not tall but thick enough to fill half a hallway and at least twenty yards long. Their heads were round with black spider-like eyes everywhere yet with a circular mouth in the center. They were green and red with black spots.

From what Junker could see on the monitor, the creatures exited their sleeper hutches, then 'swam' through the zero g in a manner that suggested to the Captain that the things knew exactly where he and his men were.

"Oh shit," William Junker said. "We have to go. We have to go now!"

Gunther didn't ask Moss to leave Denise's side. He hauled his friend to his feet and pulled him along (Gunther took the assault rifle; Moss was too grief stricken to use it).

The men exited the command center quickly.

"We need to get go'in, Chief," Pistol said to Junker.

"It's going to take some time to finish repairs," Junker replied. "I don't' think we have that sorta time right now. We gotta put some distance between us and these damn things."

As he spoke he could year the Blue coming. He could see a shadow in the distance creeping toward the bay.

"Faster! Move faster!"

The men ran deeper into the bowels of the Training Station—Junker and Moss explained to the others the types of horrors that awaited them down there, too.

Gamble's advice to save some bullets for themselves sounded better every minute as they could hear the Blue pursuing.

Pistol Jones offered a suggestion that Junker had been thinking of, but hadn't yet said: "We need to split. At least into two groups. They catch us—"

"Yeah," Junker said. "They catch us together and we had it."

"What 'bout dose Blue call tings you took from Estes' place?" Gunther asked.

"I was thinking about that," Junker said. "But they're back at the shuttle. If we can get back there they may work. I don't know. But I don't think we have much time."  
They were in a primary hallway. It was wide and dark and cluttered. Behind them, the way they had come, they could hear the creatures approaching fast, sweeping aside debris as they moved. Ahead of them, somewhere, lay more monsters that were probably just as lethal.

They came to an intersection.

"Cap, you take Moss with you, I'll take Gunther here."

"Okay, okay," Junker hated splitting but he knew it was the best chance.

Moss gathered himself. Thoughts of vengeance made him focus.

The men stared at one another and said goodbye without speaking. Then they went in opposite directions.

A minute later the two fast-moving Blue arrived at the intersection. They looked in both directions then they, too, parted ways.

---

"The door—you close it now please…close it now please!"

Gunther panicked as one of the Blue came swooping along the passage directly at him. He raised Moss' assault rifle but he didn't know which part of it to aim at.

He was spared the decision. The bulkhead slammed shut. The Blue banged into the door from the other side, immediately denting it.

Gunther looked at Pistol Jones who had just hot-wired the portal to close. They knew that the door was not going to hold forever. This Blue was strong.

The men looked around at the large room that, it seemed, was going to be the place they made their last stand.

Scattered, isolated emergency lights on high walls lighted the room. There were lots of things in here but they were, for the most part, too dark to make out.

Pistol found a bank of circuits near the door and clicked them to life. Miracle of miracles, most of the lights came on.

There was an old dirty banner hung on one of the dark walls. It told anyone who cared to read it that this place was the home of the "2nd Advanced Mecha Platoon – 'Rolling Thunder'".

"Training and repair center," Pistol Jones observed. "Might find some goodies in here."

There were shrikes—but all in disrepair. If they had more time they could probably put together three or four Bullseys or Heavy Duties but…

BANG.

The bulkhead bent in more. Time was getting short.

"Lookit here, Piz-toll," Gunther called.

One large area of the room was a live-ammunition firing range. There were several long alleys at the end of which were robotic mannequins dressed to look like soldiers and some like Blue.

Many of the targets were on tracks that allowed them to move and the dummy soldiers held dummy weapons complete with blinking lights and sound effects.

At the front of those alleys were shrike cockpits—no leg assemblies, just the tops with arms holding large heavy mecha guns.

"Finally, Piz-toll, some good luck. There's some ammo in here."

"Naw, sorry pal, but those are fixed. We can't move em' around at all. They're for shootin' at the dummies. We take them off the shrikes and try to fire them by hand and the recoil would kill us. Ass-um'in we could even hold em' enough to aim em'."

Gunther offered one of the few lines of sarcasm ever to come from his mouth: "Maybe we ask da Blue to stand over 'dere."

Pistol chuckled…then he had an idea.

---

"Oh no, not them again," Moss whispered to Junker.

They were in a waste recycling area, a part of the station filled with tanks, pipes, recycling pools and more. The two men had climbed a ladder and crossed the top of a massive empty water tank.

They stopped and looked down at a mass of the mutated inhabitants of the station. The creatures were huddled out at the base of the only ladder on that side of the tank. There were about a dozen of them sitting in a circle fighting over "scraps" from a recent battle.

Junker knew, however, that their other enemy wasn't far behind. They had slowed it by closing an access hatch. That hatch had bought them some precious minutes but it was not a permanent respite.

Junker and Moss withdrew. As they moved the Captain took note of the tank they were on top of. The interior volume had to be as big as a very large room. Access was provided from the top via a round hatch.

"Wait a second…" the Captain's words were interrupted as he heard the sound of their other foe approaching from the far side of the recycling area. No doubt the mutants below had also heard.

"What? If you got an idea now is the time, Boss."

Junker looked over the side of the massive tank. He saw what he was looking for. Aside from the hatch on the roof there was one other hatch at the bottom and it was open. Other than that the other ways out—through water pipes—were too small for a man.

The Captain put on his story-time voice and told Moss: "Did you ever hear the one about the battle at Baikonur space base?"

Moss could hear the mutants starting to climb the ladder at the far end of the tank.

"Not the time, Cap."

"The base's attacker robots had gone haywire and were attacking anything, even humans. A nest of Blue was also near the base and threatened the shuttle catapult. Marlene and Yuji were there—so was this dumb ass commander I once knew. But anyway, do you know what they did?"

"What?" Moss asked.

Captain Junker told him.  
The centipede-ish Blue was on the ceiling of the recycling area and closing in. The mutants were arriving, one by one, on top of the tank.

---

The bulkhead crashed open and the Blue slithered into the home of "Rolling Thunder." It was dark, but the hunter could feel that its prey was in the general area and it could sense no other avenue of escape.

It moved forward, pushing over the old battle machines that were in disrepair.

Then it found site of its quarry. Two men began firing at it—the creature could see the flashes from the men's barrels. It rushed toward its prey and the men did not move, just stood there firing.

The Blue brought its jaws down on the first of the men and snapped him in half.

Lights popped on the firing range. The Blue was devouring one of the test-range dummies and was directly in the line of fire.

The range's shrikes could not swivel too far to either side but it didn't matter. The centipede-like creature was in the only spot in the room where it could be hit.

Gunther and Pistol Jones, both in separate live-fire test shrikes, let loose a hail of heavy-caliber rounds. The creature was caught unaware and ripped to shreds.

---

Moss had insisted—he was younger and faster. He stood on top of the tank as the lumbering mass of mutations came across the catwalk, waving their iron clubs and knives.

Darren could also feel the Blue moving across the ceiling, almost directly over him now. He wondered if it was still focused on him or if the whole gang of humans made him less of a target.

It didn't matter.

At the last possible moment, Darren Moss climbed into the topside hatch and descended the ladder into the tank.

"Over here," said a voice in the dark, barely audible above the grunts and groans of the mutants who were following Moss down the ladder.

Moss moved toward Captain Junker's flashlight. He was next to the only other exit from the tank. He turned off his flashlight as Moss got close enough—he didn't want their pursuers to see it.

The monstrous denizens of the lower levels of the Training Station poured in, already fighting over who would dine on the newcomer's corpse. But an even bigger problem followed—the light from the upper hatch was blocked as the centipede-like Blue pushed into the hatched then disappeared in the shadows as it walked upside down on the roof of the tank.

"Go!" Moss encouraged and go Junker did. He exited the side hatch with Moss right behind him.

The sound of carnage—of the Blue attacking the mutated humans and them attacking it--echoed through the tight chamber with screams and hisses both human and otherwise.

Junker was out. Moss was crawling when something grabbed him from behind—something strong.

The Captain could tell by the look on his friend's face that he was in trouble. He grabbed at Moss' hands and tried to pull but, instead, Darren was slowly being dragged in.

There was a ripping noise. The lower half of Moss' body was being torn apart by something.

"Go…" he said as the first traces of blood trickled out his mouth. "Go…get them for me…for…D—"

Moss' arms grabbed the inner handle of the hatch. As he was pulled into the tank his hands pulled that hatch shut.

Junker could not stop to think. He climbed the tank's external ladder, got to the top, and closed the roof hatch. He then hurried to a pump station and flooded the tank with wastewater.

Blue can't swim.

The sounds of the dying creatures flailing hopelessly against the sides of the heavy chamber filled the recycling center for a time. Then they stopped.

Junker put his head in his hands and sat there for a long while. As he did, he thought about the store he had told Moss just minutes before.

_The commander had a group of shrikes attack the Blue nest then retreat until they were within the defense perimeter of the automated attackers. While the Blue and the automatons fought the rest of the humans infiltrated Baikonur, fixed the attacker's program, and used them as cover to get the shuttle off._

It's a great story, but Yuji tells it even better than me.

---

The red shuttlecraft descended through the clouds.

Its destination became clear—a massive walled compound on the wasteland plains of Manitoba. That compound was dominated by two large domes surrounded by smaller buildings with a landing strip also within the walls.

One of those buildings had a balcony. On that balcony was a young boy who watched the shuttle—still just a speck in the sky—as it glided earthbound.

That young boy was Takashi Kaido.

There was movement behind him. A man walked to the boy and rested his right hand gently on Takashi's left shoulder.

Takashi turned his head, looked at the hand, then looked at the man.

The stoic boy spoke plainly: "They are coming."

"Good," the man answered. "Now we can bring this to conclusion."

Takashi returned his eyes to the sky. The craft was closer now, floating through the air as if it were a big graceful bird of prey with its wings spread wide.

Takashi thought of something and looked up at the man once again.

"Tell me," he asked with a child's innocent curiosity. "Are you afraid?"

The man withdrew his hand from the boy's shoulder, considered, then answered the question with a question of his own.

"Do you think I should be?"

Takashi Kaido returned to watching the descending shuttle. His blue eyes followed it as it eased toward the airstrip on approach.

"Yes."

The landing gear opened with a hydraulic _clang_. The shuttle raced above the tarmac easing lower…lower…lower…then the rubber screeched as the rear landing gear touched the Earth.

Brakes.

More brakes as the nose cone's gear touched the runway.

Reverse thrusters drained momentum until it slowed to taxiing speed.

The shuttle arrived at the final destination.

**__**

NEXT FACTOR:

17. Redoubt

Cpt. Junker: "Okay, here's the file in Amicks' old computer. It's called 'Second Son.' This Professor guy was trying to…oh my God. This makes the Sleeper program look like Kindergarten. Marlene and Yuji are in more danger than they can possibly imagine."


	17. 17 Redoubt

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

** **

17. Redoubt

Marlene rarely took her eyes off of Dr. Gamble. If those eyes had blades then the good doctor would've been sliced and diced and left in pieces to be picked at by the birds.

If only they weren't surrounded by red and white clad mercenaries with heavy assault rifles.

The air outside the redoubt was crisp and cool—the winds carried a chill across the tarmac. Inside, however, things were different.

The captives were taken through a massive vault-like entranceway and escorted into a bland room that was larger than but still seemingly related to a physician's waiting room.

And that's what they did—they waited. As they waited, Marlene eyed Gamble.

_A knife slash from ear to ear--now that would be nice._

She was also aware of General Deeves. She had plenty of ideas for him, too. But they would have to wait. She was revenge-minded, but not stupid.

An inner door opened and several newcomers arrived. They were dressed in soft, silky robes and tunics that looked to be something the gods of Olympus might wear.

Furthermore, the Gods on Olympus might just look like these people—perfectly toned, youthful albeit not young, and near-perfect complexions from a variety of races.

They all looked pleasant and welcoming as they walked in line behind their apparent leader—a man who appeared to be in his mid 30s, bald by design, with tremendous muscle tone, a thick neck, and a diplomat's smile.

"Hello Yuji, Marlene," the man greeted. "I am Professor Ivan Gorski. Welcome to Elysium—"

"Where is my son?" Marlene interrupted and she did not share their host's friendly smile.

Gorski's smile faltered only in the slightest.

"Well, I suspect we will be unable to exchange pleasantries until you are convinced that young Takashi is safe and sound and unharmed. I suppose we can discuss matters as we walk. This way..."

Gorski and his followers—about a half dozen of them—led Marlene and Yuji into the heart of the complex. Yuji noted that they were all unarmed—he doubted they could be hiding weapons under such skimpy clothing. The mercs stayed behind. General Deeves and Dr. Gamble accompanied the group.

The Professor led the way, talking to them as they moved.

First they walked along a big, wide corridor. Then they entered the first of the two domes.

It was made of white stone—seemingly cut out of ivory for that matter. A massive ornate fountain flowed in the center. Stairs led upwards to decorative walkways that circled the open air of the massive dome.

Sculptures, artwork on easels, stone benches, plants and shrubs, and other touches made for the feeling of being inside some sort of hybrid park/museum.

"This is the Community Dome," Gorski explained as they moved through. He could not help but notice the sharp looks Marlene was throwing at Gamble.

Gorski continued: "There are about two dozen of us who live here—the remaining members of the science team that came here to weather the Blue apocalypse.

"We did more than survive it—we thrived."

Yuji was amazed at the site, as was Marlene (despite her anger and desperation to see Takashi).

Yuji asked: "How long have you been here? How long has it been like this?"

The Professor explained: "Let's see…it's been so long. I'd say we've been here for more than fifteen years. We went on line before Second Earth was even complete. Then again, my people were always several steps ahead of Victor, Miyagi, and the rest of them."

The people in the community dome were all as gorgeous and fit as Gorski's entourage and they all smiled and waved as the new arrivals past through.

"During your stay here," Gorski told them, spying another dagger from Marlene directed at Gamble, "You will be free to explore these main levels. You'll find plenty to do—express your creativity, try your hand at painting, examine our collection of rare wild life. The lower areas are restricted to authorized personnel but I'm sure we'll be able to get past all that soon enough."

Marlene asked, glibly: "What about access to the transports?"

They had noticed a line of air ships outside by the runway.

"I'm afraid," Gorski answered, "That it would be too dangerous to be outside for an extended time period."

"Why is that?" Yuji wanted to know.

Gamble answered: "There are Blue attacks every day—like clockwork."

"Blue?" Yuji wondered.

Gorski turned to explain and saw Marlene cutting into Gamble with her eyes.

"Um, Charles, perhaps it would be better if you excused us," the Professor suggested. "It seems you may be a source of agitation for our guests. Regrettable but understandable. I'm sure it will pass."

"Yes," Marlene quickly interjected. "I know exactly how we can get over it."

She pictured him lying in a pool of his own blood.

Gamble smiled politely and answered: "Yes, of course," and moved off.

The Professor continued: "There is a massive Blue nest to the southwest. They attack every afternoon. Usually about fifty to one hundred creatures. My calculations indicate that there is a cycle of breeding, hatching, and growth involved in the timing. They wait until they hit the minimum number of adult fighters and launch their raid."

"You don't seem overly concerned," Yuji noted. "I've seen Deeves' mercs in action—they couldn't handle that type of thing."

General Deeves grunted and explained: "This base has sophisticated automatic defenses to defend against both ground-based Blue and flying ones."

"How lucky for you," Marlene sneered.

The group continued to walk. They came to a large open bulkhead which connected directly to the second of the two large domes.

"This is the Great Hall," Gorski told them. "We use this for large gatherings to discuss issues, to announce new breakthroughs—sort of a city hall, if you will."

"I get the feeling," Yuji observed. "That democracy isn't big here."

Gorski smiled: "You're right. My followers expect me to lead. But this is the place where we share ideas. I think you'll find that many of your preconceptions are misguided, Yuji Kaido."

"I see," the sleeper mumbled.

"No, really," Gorski emphasized. "The doctor told me that you two often thought you were living in paradise in South America. Paradise? With disease and death? How can that be paradise? It may have been beautiful, but it was no paradise.

"This is real paradise. You saw my people—they are devoted to science and the arts. Here we don't just survive, we are exploring the limits of human capability."

"Paradise?" Marlene said. "A paradise that hires mercenaries, kills unarmed civilians and kidnaps little boys? A paradise that leaves a couple of Blue back up on Second Earth to kill the rest of our friends?"

"Admittedly," Gorski said. "The General's soldiers became somewhat overzealous at the village. As for your friends…some sacrifices must be made for the good of humanity.

"And that's what this is all about—the good of humanity. In a few moments I'm going to show you…I'm going to show you how important you two and your son are."

The Great Hall was just like the Community Dome in that it was white. However, it differed in that there was a raised stone platform on one end where leaders could sit and lines of beautifully sculptured benches where the audience could listen.

Other than passage to the Community Dome there was one other exit from this place, situated not far from the raised platform.

Yuji, Marlene, and their escorts headed in that direction.

---

"What we do here?" Gunther was annoyed. "We should be back at da shuttle getting out of dis place."

Gunther, Pistol, and Junker were in Amick Hendar's old office.

The three had rendezvoused at the shuttle after the Blue hounds had been dispatched. There they had geared up and were now well equipped for the station's denizens should they make another appearance.

Captain Junker explained: "Where we gunna go, Gunther? Can't follow Gamble's shuttle if we don't know where he went."

Amick's computer was still on, just as Marlene had left it several hours before. The files she had downloaded onto disc were on the screen. Junker was looking for information on this Professor Gorski and anything else that might help.

"Maybe we should be down in da 'Rolling Dunder' area pudd'in together shrikes for dis, ya?"

"Good idea there, G," Pistol said. "But do you wanna go splitt'in up?"

Gunther shook his head 'no'. He didn't like the idea of splitting up in that God-forsaken place. It was scary enough with all of them armed and together.

"Then," Junker finished. "We gotta do things one at a time, right? First this, then we see what kind of goodies we can get to the shuttle. Something tells me that if we do catch up to Gamble we're gunna need firepower."

"Ya," Gunther agreed.

"Okay, here we go," Junker made progress on the computer. "I've got the coordinates for the compound in Manitoba. Let's hope that's still where this guy is operating from. Here's some more info…here's the professor."

They looked at a photo of Dr. Ivan Gorski that dated back to before the days of Second Earth. The man had thinning hair, a potbelly, and slumped shoulders.

"According to this," Junker read. "The guy should be about seventy years old by now. Don't think anyone in that state is gunna go caus'in this kinda ruckus."

Junker read some more.

"Hold on, here's an interesting file. Looks like our Professor friend had a pet project, something called 'Second Son.' Let's take a looky here…"

Junker read silently. As he did, his eyes bulged in amazement.

"This has to be a joke," he muttered.

"What? What's that?" Pistol wanted more information.

Junker, in a state of shock, told them: "Jesus H. Christ on a Popsicle stick. This makes the Sleeper program look like Kindergarten stuff."

"What? What is it?" Pistol and Gunther both waited but Junker had one thought that raced through his mind.

"Marlene and Yuji are in more danger than they can possibly imagine. We gotta get down there. Quick. And yeah, we need a shitload of firepower."

---

Gorski led Marlene and Yuji into a dark room that had one large source of light in the middle.

They were in an observation area. That light came from a circle of raised, angled windows that looked down into what had been a large laboratory. It looked as if it had been converted into a child's playroom.

Marlene and Yuji pressed to the glass. Many feet below was their son, Takashi, playing in the middle of the carpeted area. Book shelves and toy chests, play chairs and tables lined the walls.

Takashi was sitting there, unaware of being watched. He was playing with some sort of plastic building logs.

"Takashi…" Marlene whispered but she knew that even if she yelled he could not hear.

"Over the years we have learned so much about the Blue and nature and what happened to the world nineteen years ago. We are close to the final solution for mankind and nature to live in harmony," Gorski explained but the two parents were only half listening.

"What's he doing?" Yuji asked as he noted that his son was using the blocks to build something. It looked like two twisting, thin towers, about three feet tall.

"I don't know, he won't tell me," Gorski mused. "He's been working on it little by little since he arrived here."

Marlene and Yuji remained pressed against the glass. It was a relief to see Takashi. It was only a little more than a week, but it felt like months.

The Professor realized he didn't' have their attention so he spoke of Takashi to them: "Do not worry, we have done nothing to your son. He is unaltered, unharmed. We've taken some tissue and blood samples, but that's it. He is the same boy he was when he left your village."

Marlene corrected: "When he was kidnapped."

Gorski did not argue. Instead he tried to impress them with the knowledge he had that they lacked.

"Take the Blue, for example. Most of us just assumed they were insect-like creatures comprised of different types, such as choppers or tankers or springworms and more.

"But didn't you ever wonder why Blue would develop flying variations when they needed to reach islands or combat areas with heavy tactical air support from, say, helicopters?"

Gorski had Yuji's attention. Marlene was still staring at her boy.

The Professor went on: "How come such large creatures that could fight so well could be killed by simply killing the core?"

"I don't know," Yuji said honestly. "I just assumed it was like their heart or brain or something."

"You're close," Gorski said. "Let me ask you this—what's the easiest way to defeat an enemy shrike?"

"Kill the pilot," Yuji figured.

"Right!" Gorski was happy. "And that's exactly what you're doing when you destroy the Blue's core."

That did get Marlene's attention: "What? What are you saying?"

"The Blue aren't choppers or tankers or land whales," he revealed to them both. "The Blue is the core itself. The animals that surround them are essentially biological shrikes. That's why they evolve so quickly. Why did man progress from the Mark IV to the Heavy Duty Shrike?"

Marlene remembered and answered: "The Heavy Duty provided more fire power and enhanced armored plating."

"Right! Just as a tanker beetle provides better armor or a springworm is smaller and more flexible and capable of fighting in tighter streets or inside buildings."

"So you're saying," Yuji surmised, "that the core can exist separately from the Blue?"

Gorski shook his head and told him: "Not exactly. The Blue reproduce differently from us. We know that the core is not born by itself. Yet I believe the analogy still holds."

"I want to talk to my son," Marlene lost interest.

Gorski ignored her and told Yuji: "The b-cells in your body were the markers for a set of what some would call genetic abnormalities. But that isn't a fair description. After all, were the genes that caused longer-necked giraffes or gave wolves a keener sense of smell abnormalities? No, they were steps in the evolutionary process."

"I don't follow you," Yuji remarked.

"Victor was short sighted—he wanted to 'activate' your b-cells to make you into a better fighter. It worked for a time but was a short-term solution. I've been working on long term answers.

"Take, for example, the Double Edge. It was a shame it was destroyed so quickly."

"You left the Double Edge for me to find?" Marlene looked.

"Of course," Gorski said. "Just as I arranged for your 'poison.' Just as the General left the Houston coordinates in the transport's nav computer. Just as we left a swarm of Blue in close proximity to your village. This has all been part of a grand design since the beginning. All under my control. An experiment, if you will."

Yuji figured it out: "You knew Marlene would put me in the Double Edge to try and cure me and that it would activate my b-cells, especially when the Blue attacked."

Gorski shook his head: "No, it was about much more than activating your b-cells. I added some special…features…to the Double Edge. I was hoping that you would have undergone your metamorphosis by the time you arrived here, but I guess that wasn't to be. A pity."

"The b-cells gave birth to the Blue," Marlene noted.

"Yes," Gorski admitted. "While it is more complicated than that, you are essentially correct. But the b-cells also gave birth to Takashi."

"What?!"

"Yuji's genes—they are ultimately what the b-cells are all about. Those genes, combined with Marlene's own unique human genes, resulted in your son—Takashi. Your purpose, Yuji, was not simply to interact with some mystical light to end the rampage of the Blue, it was to have children. More specifically, to have children with Marlene Angel and _her_ genetic code."

Marlene was insistent: "That doesn't make sense and, damnit, I want to speak to Takashi. Now."

Gorski approached the observation window. Takashi was down there, still unaware he was being watched, working on his building blocks.

"It's all about evolution—that's what nature is," Gorski told them. "Let me show it to you."

He nodded toward one of his compatriots.

A door behind Takashi Kaido raised open.

Yuji gasped.

Marlene screamed:"No! What are you doing? No—please don't!"

A slithering spring worm Blue with its disgusting vertical mouth, short jagged tusks, and multiple eyes moved into the room.

Takashi, his back to the creature and unable to hear his parents above, played with his blocks.

**__**

NEXT FACTOR:

18. Revelations

Takashi: "Quiet mommy…you don't want to wake it…the Professor says it's my brother…I don't think it looks like a person at all. Mommy? Why are you shaking?"


	18. 18 Revelations

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

18. Revelations

Marlene pounded on the glass as the Spring Worm rolled into the room behind the unsuspecting little boy.

Her son.

"Stop this! Stop this Professor," Yuji pleaded. "We'll do whatever you—"

"Behold!" Gorski announced in a grand manner.

"Behold evolution!"

The Blue bore down on Takashi, then veered away; actually rubbing against the boy—accidentally--as it did.

Takashi glanced at it the way he might glance at a person who interrupted his train of thought: Takashi was busy working on his building block project.

"What? What…happened?" Marlene gasped as her heart raced.

It became apparent that the Blue had no interest in Takashi.

The Spring Worm moved about the room and inspected it then it stopped and waited—a typical Blue posture when they had nothing else to do.

Gorski suggested to the anxious parents: "Take a moment and think--think about what you are seeing."

"What did you do to my son?" Yuji wanted to know. "Did you activate his b-cells the way—"

Professor Gorski offered a stunning revelation: "Takashi Kaido has no b-cells."

"That's impossible. I have the b-cells," Yuji protested. "You just said yourself that the b-cells gave birth to Takashi."

"Yes, but his genetic code is vastly different from either you or his mother," Gorski relayed. "Don't get me wrong—his genes contain the physical characteristics of his parents. His lineage is not in doubt—he is your son. But the basic genome is substantially different. Takashi does not have any trace of the same genetic 'abnormalities' that are marked by your b-cells, Yuji."

"Just…an…ordinary little boy," Marlene mused as she stared—still in shock—at the sight of that hideous Blue within close proximity to her child.

Gorski laughed: "An ordinary boy? No, Marlene, an _extraordinary_ boy—more so than you know. But I'm going to show you, and you'll understand why all this was a necessary evil."

"Get my son out of there," Marlene insisted.

Gorski activated an intercom: "Takashi, this is Ivan. Could you please exit the playroom through the secure door? Your parents are here and they're eager to see you again."

Takashi grew a huge grin, stood, and sprinted toward a small door on the side of the room. It slid open and Takashi quickly went through. The Spring Worm took note of Takashi's movements but did nothing. It simply had no interest in him.

After Takashi was out, a set of robotic arms descended from the ceiling. Those robotic arms contained a prod that was used to stun the Blue so that it could be removed from the room.

"This way, please," Gorski motioned and led Marlene and Yuji from the observation area and into the hall.

The Professor spoke while they walked. Marlene barely listened but Yuji was more attentive. After all, Gorski was indicating that he had more answers about the b-cells and that meant more answers for Yuji about who he was.

"Your son has a physical constitution like no other. I believe we've seen only the tip of the ice berg—so to speak—but when he hits adolescence his genes will unleash incredible regenerative powers."

"Regenerative powers?" Yuji wondered as they descended a staircase.

"Yes. Inside, outside—against illness and even significant physical injury," Gorski told them. "That alone will reduce his dependence on medical science.

"Furthermore, most humans use only a small fraction of their brain power. Yuji already appears to use almost double the amount a human male uses at adulthood. I'm sure you've noticed how smart he is—how resilient. That's not by accident, it's by design."

"Design?" Yuji wondered.

"The design of evolution. Of nature."

They opened a door and entered a wide hallway. One of the scantly clad female residents of Elysium was escorting Takashi along the corridor.

"Mommy! Daddy!"

Takashi may have been everything Gorski was telling them, but as he saw his parents for the first time in more than a week he was a happy little boy. He ran to them and hugged and kissed them both.

Marlene nearly smothered the child with the strength of her embrace.

Gorski's voice continued in the background: "I have prepared quarters for you adjacent to your son's room. You are my guests for the time. Explore how we live here and I will show you wonders you never could've imagined. And I'll show you the future of mankind."

---

It was nestled among the tattered remains of the Whiteshell Nuclear Research establishment. Once a haven for scientists researching the consequences of reactor failures or ideas for nuclear waste disposal, the facility's walls and buildings—blasted out of the pre-Cambrian rock—were now home to a massive Blue nest.

The creatures therein knew that the time had come, once again, to march into battle. They knew their target. They knew their mission. They poured forth on the ground and in the air like the army they were.

---

Yuji looked in at Takashi—the boy was taking a late afternoon nap. The excitement of seeing his parents again had been exhausting.

Yuji closed the door.

Gorski had provided them with first rate accommodations. A large windowless room elegantly decorated with colorful flowers, an ornate mirror, a heavy table with chairs, bureaus for storage, a massive circular bed, and two bookshelves filled with fine works of literature.

A door—closed at the moment—led to an equally plush lavatory.

Yuji struggled with his new clothes—his now-discarded battle uniform had become dingy and, frankly, it stank.

His new clothing, a white tunic and matching, loose-fitting slacks were quite comfortable. Apparently they were sewn from a fine, silk-like material.

Marlene emerged from the lavatory. She was carrying her dirty battle suit and armor in her arms while struggling to fit into her own new getup. She did not seem happy.

Yuji was quite happy, however. He had never seen her wear something so…so revealing and—he had to admit it—alluring. A one piece white robe-like outfit that was one short step away from see-through. It barely covered her from her shoulders to her upper thigh—_way_ upper.

"Is this what they wear around this place?" Marlene said, tossing her battle suit on the dresser top. "It's a wonder they don't all catch cold."

"Yes, you seem chilly," he joked as he observed parts of her that were a bit, well, protruding.

She gave him an acid-filled look.

"What? I mean, you do wear it well."

"I see," she walked over to him.

His own lack of cover showed off his strong biceps and sturdy chest.

She placed a single finger on his chin and with seductive eyes said: "You like this? I bet you're thinking a lot of nasty thoughts right now…"

He threw his arms around her slim waist and pulled her close "Yeah…not all of them so nasty…"

She pressed her forehead against his and said: "I'm having some thoughts, too. Want to know what they are…?"

"Hmmm," Yuji growled. "Please, tell me."

Marlene pulled back and her tone changed dramatically.

"I'm wondering why we're prancing around like a bunch of arrogant dolts in tissue paper outfits. I'm wondering why we just spent a week going through Hell, watching people die, and all of a sudden you think everything's okay. I think you like it here and that bothers me."

"Marlene…"

"I'm thinking that you're hoping that Professor Psycho can give you more answers about everything you went through five years ago."

Yuji, his mood totally destroyed by her sucker punch, became agitated.

"Yes, yes maybe I am. Maybe there are some answers here about life and what has happened in the world. Maybe this guy can tell us something."

"Tell us something?" Marlene said. "I know what life is now, Yuji. You taught it to me, remember?

"It's your hands in the dirt building something out of nothing—like we had at the village. It's holding your child when a thunderstorm scares him or waking up next to the person you love for another new day."

"I'm just saying," Yuji pleaded. "That since we're here and since we've gone through all of this maybe we should listen to what he has to tell us. Maybe I can find out more about my purpose…."

"Your purpose? You found that out five years ago Yuji."

"I still have questions," he retorted.

"Did you ever stop to think for a moment," she argued. "That not every question about life can be answered? Or should be? Isn't it enough to live? Isn't it enough to be happy? If we keep asking ourselves _why_ or _how_ we don't take the time to enjoy it all. And sooner or later it ends, then all our time is gone.

"I wasted too much of my life," she finished, "Being a robot soldier for the High Council. And I hate Gorski for making me fight and kill all over again."

He was frustrated; he ran a hand through his hair.

"Marlene, maybe Gorski can tell us what life has in store for Takashi."

"Right," she fired a harsh arrow. "Because he made sure that life had very little in store for Bo Fuentes."

Their dispute was interrupted. A soft klaxon ran through the structure.

Takashi's door opened. He stood there rubbing his eyes.

The boy told them matter-of-factly: "The Blue are attacking again."

---

The Blue swarmed toward the walls of the base in the air and on the ground. They were met by gun turrets.

The weapons made a sleek 'swoosh' sound as they fired—these were no ordinary heavy guns. They were also very effective.

They did not aim for the core—they were not so precise. But the automatic guns did a marvelous job at shredding the attacker's bodies until the core was either shredded itself or that body was completely incapacitated.

---

The Kaido family arrived at the Great Hall. The citizens of Elysium did not seem overly concerned.

A calm voice came over some sort of communications system throughout the complex. It sounded human, at first, but it became apparent it was an automated, or computerized, system.

"HOSTILE FORCE ENGAGED…ATTACKER STRENGTH ESTIMATED AT 65 UNITS…PRIMARY DEFENSIVE EMPLACEMENTS OPERATING AT 45%…"

Professor Gorski was sitting at the main table next to General Deeves and a few other Elysians. The Kaidos approached the group.

"What's happening?" Yuji asked.

"The Blue are attacking—just a mild attack today," Gorski explained. "Not something you should worry yourselves about. As long as you stay inside."

"Professor, if the Blue attack like this everyday," Yuji asked. "How do you…how do you have enough ammunition to keep up the defenses. I don't see any factories. No raw materials."

"Our factories are our nurseries and arboretums, Yuji," the Professor said with pride. "We _grow_ our ammunition."

"Grow? Ammunition?" Marlene was aghast.

"ATTACKING FORCE NOW ESTIMATED AT 35 UNITS…PRIMARY DEFENSIVE EMPLACEMENTS OPERATING AT 25%..."

"Our defenses are magnetic rail guns," Gorski explained. "We have genetically engineered several plant species to grow the right size pellet to fit the gun barrels. A pellet as hard as a heavy caliber bullet but not so hard to produce."

"Amazing," Yuji thought.

The Professor told him: "You don't know the half of it…yet."

---

The Blue attack was easily defeated. Deeves' Mercs mopped up a handful of flying Blue that had dropped inside the walls—most already mortally wounded.

After the sun had set Gorski sent the Kaidos a private family dinner of exotic fruits, vegetables, wine, and bread. It was a pleasant family meal followed by wrestling between Yuji and Takashi. Later, Marlene read their son "Green Eggs and Ham," by Dr. Seuss: one of the literary "classics" left on the bookshelf.

The family then slept, peacefully, through the night.

---

It was morning.

Professor Gorski stood in the observation area above Takashi's playroom. The boy was there entertaining himself while his parent's finished breakfast.

The Professor knew it was going to be a busy day.

Still, he couldn't help but watch young Takashi. The boy was working with his blocks again—two spiraling, parallel lines twisting into the air.

Ivan Gorski concentrated. He tried to visualize what the unfinished project was going to be. It looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite place it.

_Soon I'll know what you're up to._

---

Yuji and Marlene met their son outside the playroom. There they were greeted by Professor Gorski.

"Good morning, I trust you slept well?"

"Yeah," Yuji said—almost dejectedly—"plenty of _sleep_ last night."

"Good. I'd like to show you more of what we do here, and why."

"Mom," Takashi tugged at Marlene's arm. "Can't we do something. Just the two of us?"

She kneeled.

"Sure we can, Takashi. What do you want to do?"  
"I want to show you around, mom."

Gorski nodded his approval.

Yuji moved over to give his son a hug. Marlene stood and waited. Gorski looked at her.

"Getting better adjusted here?" he asked.

She spoke softly while Takashi and Yuji giggled.

"We're here right now because Yuji thinks you can tell him something. I don't believe it. But he does. Make no mistake, Professor. The day will come when I will be leaving here with my husband and my son."

"I see," Gorski was disappointed.

Marlene ended: "May God have mercy on the soul who stands in my way on that day."

---

General Deeves walked the perimeter wall with one of his lieutenants.

"Sir, why are we still here?"

Deeves answered: "We haven't received payment in full yet."

"I don't understand," the lieutenant was puzzled. "We loaded the crates of ammunition, food, gold, and medicine on the transport yesterday. Is there something more?"

Deeves watched as three of his soldiers exited via a side door to head on a patrol to the east in the direction of a warped forest that rested upon the plains.

He kept them patrolling even if the base was well defended. It kept them sharp.

Deeves answered his officer: "There's one more payment left to make. One piece of equipment that will make us—will make _me_—undefeatable."

_Yes,_ Deeves thought. _The Professor has one more promise to keep._

---

Takashi led Marlene by the hand to a lonely corridor. There they came to an elevator with a keypad lock.

"Takashi?"

"Hang on, mom," the boy said as he started to punch in a nine-digit code.

"You have an access code?"

"Naw," the boy admitted. "But no matter how much the Professor talks like I'm all smart and that, he still thinks I'm dumb. He thinks I can't figure out a simple fractal nine digit pass code."

The lock opened. The boy led his mother into the high security elevator.

---

Yuji and Professor Gorski strolled through the Great Hall and entered the Community Dome. About a dozen other Elysians were there, talking, reading, or crafting artwork.

"Marlene isn't relaxed here, is she?"

"No," Yuji said. "And either am I, Professor. I have not forgotten how we came here. You are responsible for the death of my friends and for putting me and my wife through Hell."

Gorski nodded his understanding: "But you are willing to put that aside for now if I can give you the answers you've always sought."

"Let's just say I'm willing to listen."

"Okay then, listen to this," Gorski led Yuji onto one of the wide walkways that circled the Community Dome.

"We always thought of evolution as a long process. Natural selection means those best suited for survival do so and pass on their special traits—their advantages--to their children. Eventually, over time, the entire species has those special traits.

"Evolution should be a long, slow process. Hundreds of years—maybe thousands—for humans to change. Yet history is filled with unexplainable examples of evolution seemingly speeding up."

Yuji jumped in: "The Sleepers and their b-cells. You were the one who discovered us. You first saw these 'special traits'."

"Yes," the Professor admitted. "I saw immediately that the b-cells were really just markers for a change in the human genetic code."

"So you put us into cryogenic sleep. Why? Were you afraid?"  
"Yes," Gorski admitted that as well.

Yuji continued, "We were told that we could die from the b-cells."

"A lie," Gorski continued his confession. "There were no adverse health effects form the b-cells. None that we saw. I understand the Sleeper program on Second Earth produced some rather nasty behavioral changes, but that's because Victor and Seno Miyagi only understood part of the truth."

Yuji: "And that truth is?"

"The truth is in your son, Takashi. The Blue in that room knew he was in there, but didn't care. For any normal human being—even a Sleeper whose b-cells aren't fully activated—the Blue would immediately attack because the Blue were seemingly born to destroy mankind."

"You said Takashi has no b-cells."

Gorski said. "Think of evolution as an equation. The father's genes plus the mother's genes equals a result that is a child.

"In your case, however, you produced an evolutionary burst. Takashi is more than the sum of his parents because you and Marlene both must have some pre-determined evolutionary code within your genes. In essence, the two of you were meant to be together and to give birth to Takashi so that man's evolution could speed up."

"I'm not sure I'm following you."

"Takashi is at one with his world. That's why the Blue won't attack him. He is the first in a new generation of human beings who will be less dependent on technology, less dependent on industry or medical science. He is the means by which mankind will survive on this planet in harmony with it."

Yuji tried to understand: "So this was all a part of nature's plan?"

"Whatever you care to call it. Are you religious? Than maybe it's God's plan. If you want to call it the Grand Will of the Earth, then so be it. I call it evolution—the most powerful force in all the universe."

---

Marlene allowed her son to lead her deeper into the bowels of the complex. They had entered a series of hallways that led to laboratories, clean rooms, and specimen containment facilities.

Gorski had told them that there were only about two dozen of Elysians in the compound. That explained why the two intruders could move about unnoticed.

Takashi spoke: "The Professor takes me down here a lot to do tests and stuff like that."

"Did he hurt you?"

"Naww, just a few pinpricks here and there. No biggie, Mom. But he showed me a lot of neato stuff down here, too. I'll show you…"

They came to a lab door with another keypad. Once again her son used his apparently photographic memory to unlock the door.

---

"So," Yuji tried to get his head around it all. "My b-cells, or special genes, plus regular human genes—"

"Not just any human cells. It had to be Marlene. As I've watched her fight and stay focused and be determined I see that those traits for survival would be necessary in the next evolutionary step.

"Didn't she once tell you that she had visions of you?"

"What? Oh, you mean—"

"Dr. Gamble told me the story," Gorski explained. "During your first time together, when you were trekking to Baikonur space base, you separated—seemingly for good. She was trapped with some fellow, what was his name…?

"Dice."

"Yes. She was trapped with Dice by a Land Whale. She told you later that she saw, in her head, a vision of you driving an armor shrike. A few moments later you showed up in an armor shrike to save the day."

"A connection?"

"Just evolution nudging things in the right direction."

"So anyway," Yuji went on. "Takashi is more than just a step in evolution, he's almost like an instant evolutionary gain. At one with the world and all that. So that still doesn't answer why you brought us here. It will take hundreds of years—maybe longer—for his children with his genes to spread throughout the human population."

Gorski smiled: "Yes. So man's real enemy in all this hasn't been the Blue, it's been the slow pace of evolution."

The Professor raised his voice. Yuji noticed that his followers looked at the man with a reverence usually left for cult leaders or--_should he think it--_Gods.

"Evolution, nature, move at a pace much too slow for me. We came here, almost twenty years ago, not to find a way to beat the Blue with bullets and weapons, but to change man so that we could conquer evolution. So that we could be the type of beings that Takashi now is."

Yuji looked around. All of the people below were standing still, gazing at Professor Gorski and waiting on his every word.

"Now that I can see the final product—your son, Takashi—we can all join him on the next step of evolution," the Professor's eyes widened as he raised his arms with clenched fists as if he were shaking them at nature itself.

---

The laboratory included a series of sealed observation rooms along one wall.

"Takashi, what is it? What's in here?"

"The Professor has been working toward this for a long time," Takashi said. "He tells me that he's made a lot of mistakes. He's sorry. I think he really is. He says he's learned from mistakes though. He said I'm the answer to it all."

"The answer to what?"

They approached one of the observation windows.

"The answer all the people here have been looking for."

Marlene looked in at the chamber through the thick glass. Something was in there…something…moved.

Takashi spoke in a whisper: "Quiet mommy…you don't want to wake it…the Professor says it's my brother…I don't think it looks like a person at all."

She saw what was in the room.

Marlene Angel screamed.

---

"Professor. That's not possible. Evolution takes—"

"We have defeated evolution! Haven't we, my friends?"

The people down below began to disrobe, showing their perfect forms.

"How old am I, Yuji?" The Professor asked.

"I—don't know."

"I'm over seventy years old."

Yuji was shocked: "That's…that's not possible…you're lying."

"It is possible," the Professor cringed, as if he were feeling some pain as his clothing fell to the floor of the balcony.

"What are you doing?"

"It is possible," Gorski grunted, then continued. "When you have control over your DNA. When you have conquered evolution…"

Yuji looked at the audience. Some of them were going into convulsions, too. A few moaned but it didn't sound like pain.

"What—what's wrong? Professor?"

"We have…" each of them…their skin began to…began to…_move._

On each of them—some on their necks, others on their chests or shoulders or stomachs…something _pushed through_ the skin.

"We have… CONQUORED…!" The Professor boomed

It was…it was…

"WE HAVE CONQUORED EVOLUTION...!"

Cores.

_Blue Cores_.

Pulsing. Thumping.

"WE ARE THE FUTURE OF MAN...!"

Tentacles pushed through skin…mandibles…tusks…slithering appendages…people warping until they were half-human, half-Blue, and neither of both.

"WE ARE THE CHILDREN OF THE BLUE!"

****

NEXT FACTOR:

19. Interloper

Professor Gorski: "I see Takashi has completed what he was making with his building blocks. Is that—is that what I think it is? Yes, it is. What a clever little boy. I wonder if he doesn't know more than any of us."


	19. 19 Interloper

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

19. Interloper

"No! No it can't be!" Yuji dropped to his knees and clamped his hands over the sides of his head as if he might block out the carnival of the grotesque that paraded around him.

The Elysians crawled along the walls like oversized roaches; slithered like maggots through their fine art work and elegantly sculptured architecture; cried out in inhuman tongues; all in a insane dance that stood in the very face of all things natural.

Yuji was horrified and sickened. This was beyond any Blue: beyond any man-made horror. It was a sight that had to only have come from the darkest corners of Hell. Even the cannibalistic mutations on Second Earth seemed more human than these…these…_abominations._

"Now you see, Yuji Kaido," the Professor—sporting spindly spider's legs and his human head dangling from a worm-like neck—spoke in a somewhat garbled voice. "We have outsmarted evolution. I knew the answer to survival was a missing link between the Blue and humanity.

"Years ago I developed a DNA binding agent—instant evolution. Do you want blonde hair? Want to grow another six inches tall or have a darker complexion? Give me the DNA you want and, with my binding agent, I can instantly change your appearance."

"No! No this is all wrong," Yuji shut his eyes tight. He was sickened to the point of weeping; weeping for this crime against nature.

"I created the Sleeper program when I saw the genetic mutations inside those with the b-cells. I stopped evolution then and used my DNA binding agent to explore the mystery of the b-cells. Then, one day, in my laboratory I injected b-cell genes into a test-rabbit. It instantly—INSTANTLY! —became the first Blue to ever be born.

"I exposed the Earth's plan back then. Ever since I have been trying to find the right genetic combination to take man to the next step in _his_ evolution. To outsmart nature and survive the Blue apocalypse.

"My results have been outstanding, but still the Blue attack us. Now, even as we speak, I am preparing a new mixture of my binding agent with Takashi's DNA. When it is compete, all of my people will be like Takashi. I am not willing to wait generations for evolution to do its work.

"We are like _Gods!_ We will be immortal!"

---

The creature inside the observation room was half-human and half…half something else. A blob-like monstrosity with half a man's head and arm as well as a torso. The rest a scaly translucent goop that had no business being alive.

Marlene had to turn away.

"Your—your brother?"

"I don't think he meant that we were really brothers," Takashi said plainly. "I think he meant more like in spirit. The Prof calls it a hy-a hy—a hy-bread or something like that. He says he was trying to make something like I am; he calls me the perfect combination or something like that."

"What are you doing in here?"

It was a female Elysian in her perfect human form and barely fitting skirt.

Marlene did not hesitate. She was getting them out of there…now.

She grabbed Takashi by the hand and led him toward the exit. The woman got in the way.

Marlene, once again, did not hesitate.

A punch, an elbow, a sidekick.

But the woman barely moved.

"What…the—?" Marlene was stunned.

The woman's arms morphed into tentacles. They reached out and grabbed Marlene Angel, then threw her across the room and against a wall. She hit hard and fell to the floor unconscious.

---

Professor Gorski—in his perfect human facade—walked along the hallway with Dr. Gamble.

It was a new morning. The Kaidos had spent the night locked away in their quarters. They probably weren't going anywhere anytime soon—they were too busy recovering from their shock.

Gamble: "They will attempt to cause trouble. Marlene will fight. It's all she really knows."

Gorski answered: "That's understandable. It's in her genetic make up. It's who she is. When we're done extracting samples of their genome perhaps we'll bind some new DNA to her—make her more docile. That would be nice."

They came to a door, opened it, and entered. It was the observation area above Takashi's playroom. The boy was down there putting the finishing touches on his building block project.

The structure was comprised of two thin lines winding around each other. Between the lines were a series of strands that reached to other side as if they were rungs on a ladder.

Gorski scratched his chin with amazement: "I see Takashi has completed what he was making with his building blocks. Is that—is that what I think it is?"

Dr. Gamble was also quite amazed at the completed piece.

"Professor, that looks like a Double Helix—a model of DNA."

"Yes, it is. What a clever little boy. I wonder if he doesn't know more than any of us."

The two men were pleased at the boy's ingenuity and understanding. They smiled at one another.

"He is very intelligent," Gorski said. "Perhaps more so than we realize."

Takashi's playful manner suddenly changed. He grew a stern look and gazed directly up at the observation window, locking eyes with Professor Gorski.

The boy then deliberately reached over and pulled one bottom piece away from his creation.

The entire Double Helix collapsed into a pile of rubble.

---

The radio crackled.

The red and white clad mercenary patrol leader stopped his three-man team as they moved through the tortured trees of the warped woodlands.

The men got out of their patrol car—a closed-roof utility vehicle—and waited for their next move while their leader called in.

"This is Patrol Group Two—we've completed our eastern sweep. No sign of anything that could've caused that radar glitch. We're heading back now."

He turned off the communication device and began to order his team to turn around. He stopped, however, when he saw three more of his brethren (dressed in red and white body armor) approach from a position further east than theirs.

"Hey," the patrol leader called to the newcomers. "Why the Hell am I all the way out here if Deeves sent you guys, too."

The leader of the new group looked familiar to the patrol commander. He couldn't quite place the face in the helmet, though. He was an older gentleman.

The man shrugged as he approached.

"Hey," the patrol leader said again and he pointed to the newcomer's uniform. "Why does your suit have bullet holes in it?"

Captain William Junker answered the mercenary: "Gosh daggit, and here I thought you wouldn't notice…oh by the way, could I have your security codes?"

---

Yuji sat on the floor, his knees curled to his chin, staring at the ground in their quarters. Marlene sat on the end of the bed. They were both wearing their loose Elysian garb but those clothes felt disgusting and warped, not comfortable and especially not sexy, no matter how revealing.

They had been sitting there for hours. Waiting for the next round of blood samples to be taken. So far they had not been harmed—little more than pinpricks. But who knew how long that would last.

For what must have been the thousandth time, Marlene asked Yuji: "So Gorski can actually change DNA—the genetic structure of a person or thing—instantaneously?"

"Yes," Yuji's proverbial tail remained between his legs. He had been drawn to the Professor and his answers. He had allowed himself to think that maybe man could understand all of nature's plan. He had been wrong.

Yuji explained, once again, "Something he calls a 'binding agent.' From what I can tell, he's spent the last fifteen years trying to find a genetic code that would keep them safe from the Blue all while helping them live in harmony with the planet. He's been trying to evolve his people without waiting for evolution."

Marlene observed: "He said Takashi was like that, right?"

Yuji nodded.

"But Takashi…" Marlene stuttered. "He's not…he's not a monster…not like them…he's our son…"

"No, he is no monster," Yuji stated. "Because Takashi is the natural product of evolution—not some warped experiment. He is a boy, plain and simple, with some amazing qualities. But he's one hundred percent human.

"That's why Gorski kidnapped him. He wants Takashi's DNA to evolve himself instead of more guesswork."

"I've seen the results of his guess work," Marlene noted.

"Me too," Yuji reminded her. "Remember, all these people were human once. Then they tried to unlock the secrets of creation. They think they're like Gods, but they're monsters."

Takashi walked in the room from his own quarters. He heard the last part of the conversation.

"It's a backlash, daddy," Takashi said. "Like the Blue were. Mess'in around with this stuff and you make nature mad. The Professor thinks he knows what he's doing, but he doesn't. He'll see. He'll find out."

Yuji asked: "Takashi, what do you mean—"

The door to the quarters opened. Two red and white clad mercenaries stood there in full battle uniform.

"What the hell is this? More tests?" Marlene grunted.

"Some one here call for a taxi?"

It was Captain Junker and Gunther Gerhardt.

---

The group made it much further than they thought they could before the alarm sounded. In fact, they were outside the walls of the complex heading east in a 'borrowed' closed-roofed Jeep when the first shots rang down from the walls.

But it wasn't the turrets that fired—it was the small arms of the mercs.

---

"We had a deal, Professor," General Deeves was with Gorski and Dr. Gamble in the Great Hall. "I want my final payment."

"Patience, General," Gorski told him. "Your order is almost complete. It's just a matter of hours now until your…your weapon is ready for use."

A communicator on the General's utility belt buzzed. He answered it.

"What? When? Wait a moment…" Deeves lowered the device and spoke to Gorski: "My men just spotted the Kaidos leaving the compound in a vehicle. I told you I should be in charge of internal security."

"What?" The Professor raised to his feet. "Send your men after them, at once. But I want Takashi back alive, do you understand? The boy must NOT be harmed."

Deeves nodded then spoke to his men via the radio.

Dr. Gamble looked over at his comrade, Professor Gorski. The two exchanged a communication of their own—an unspoken one.

Dr. Charles Gamble raised from the table and walked away all while Deeves barked orders into his communicator.

---

A gate on the eastern wall of the compound raised. A pursuit team of mercenaries, supported by one modified Heavy Duty shrike, raced out. They headed across the plains and toward the forest to the east. They were a few minutes behind their quarry.

About a dozen armed mercenary soldiers were in two cars that followed the shrike.

General Deeves arrived at the wall of the compound. He called his lieutenant to his side.

"How did this happen?"

"I'm not sure, sir," the man said. "But it looks as they had help from the outside. Maybe the others that were left on Second Earth. They got a hold of some of our uniforms and a patrol vehicle. I think they must've ambushed one of our patrols and got their security codes. The guards on the wall just let them pass without confirming their identity."

Deeves should've been mad, but the truth was that security had been lax because they hadn't expected any problems with humans. The gun turrets were automatically set to find and destroy Blue based on their bio magnetic signature. It had been up to Deeves' men to watch for other types of intruders.

Still, they had not expected anyone else way up in that God-forsaken land.

"That radar blip," Deeves understood. "Must've been a shuttle landing. It seems our opponents are more resourceful than we had anticipated. I will inform the Professor. No one else gets back in here without proper clearance, understand?"

The lieutenant nodded.

---

"They're coming after us," Yuji observed as their vehicle entered he forest. Behind him, across the open space, he could see the outline of a shrike and the dust path of other vehicles.

"Not to worry," Junker told them. "We have a surprise waiting for them."

"Moss and Pistol?" Marlene wondered as she shivered in the loose outfit.

Junker didn't need to explain, the tone of his answer said it all: "Just Pistol."

---

The mercenary pursuit team knew they were catching up. They entered the forest only a minute or two after their prey had done so.

The pilot of the shrike powered all his weapons and prepared for battle. The infantry in the two cars double checked ammunition.

Deeves' voice came over the radio reminded each of them: "Kill all of them, except the boy. He must be unharmed."

The mercenaries—as unprofessional as they were—would follow those orders because General Deeves would hold them accountable if they didn't. They knew what had happened to the last man who had disobeyed orders. He had been gravely wounded and left to bleed to death at a supply depot in Houston.

The shrike led them into the forest. The road—little more than a path of dirt and rocks—stretched forward between two rows of heavy forest.

The shrike pilot peered forward carefully. He could see a dust cloud ahead of them. He hit is accelerator and—

WHAM!

Another shrike stepped right out in front of him. It had been hiding in the brush on the side of the road. It had been hiding so still that it had not registered on the motion detectors until it was too late.

It was a modified Grapple—that meant missile armaments and a heavy gun. The pilot of the red and white painted merc shrike saw the phrase; "Rolling Thunder" painted on the surface of his enemy.

But that was about all he saw because one heavy fist from the grapple smashed into the cockpit of the merc's shrike, pulverizing the driver much like a shrike tries to pulverize the core of a Blue.

The infantry stopped their vehicles and tried to pile out. But Gunther Gerhardt—who had bailed from the escape vehicle at the pre-determined point—held a rocket launcher aloft. It fried one full vehicle of infantry.

The grapple took a few small arms shots from dismounting infantry before it mowed them down with its own gun.

---

Deeves' lieutenant couldn't see everything from the wall of the compound, but he could see enough: a cloud of smoke rising from the forest in the distance.

He tried to radio the pursuit team but received only static.

His men had been defeated.

He did not want to be the one to inform the General, but he had no choice.

---

The pursuit team was wiped out. Pistol Jones drove the Grapple toward the shuttle while Gunther drove the merc's own red and white shrike (after having cleaned the sloppy remains from its cockpit).

They arrived at the shuttle; the shuttle Captain Junker had expertly landed on a wide plain on the far side of the forest.

The shuttle was loaded with shrikes Junker, Gerhardt, and Jones had re-assembled from the 'Rolling Thunder' area on Second Earth. It had taken them hours to put together four fully operational shrikes (including the Grapple Jones had been piloting).

They had still had a fair amount of supplies in their shuttle, supplies given by Amick Hendar or taken from the spaceport outside of Kingsville in Texas; all courtesy of Mr. Estes and his doomed thugs.

So the repaired shrikes were well armed.

They had one other resource at the shuttle: The three mercenaries from the original patrol. The ones who had so graciously coughed up their security codes to Junker a few hours before.

Those prisoners were bound tightly in the cargo hold. Junker anticipated letting them free as the group prepared to make their final escape.

The Captain spoke to Marlene and Yuji as they entered the shuttlecraft.

"We can't get orbital, no launch catapult here," he stated the obvious. "But there's enough fuel that I can get her airborne. It'll be really heavy but still, probably can get us a couple hundred miles away from here."

Marlene walked over to the storage lockers in the cargo hold. She opened one and found what she was looking for—a fresh set of shrike battle armor.

She showed no modesty as she tore off the horrid garb she had been stuck in and began to change. Of course, she was stark naked in front of them all.

"Geez," Pistol Jones muttered.

Gunther punched him in the arm and asked: "What, Piz-tol? You never seen a tit before?"

Marlene paid them no attention. She spoke as she suited up: "Good, let's get the hell out of this place."

"No."

It was Yuji. He too was changing into battle dress.

"What?" Marlene was shocked.

Takashi stepped forward and answered for his daddy: "He can't go yet, mommy."

"Oh yes we can," Marlene said. "We can get the Hell out of here, now."

"I…I can't," Yuji told her. "I don't think any of us should."

"Whoa, big fella," Pistol Jones jumped in. "I'd rather not stick around. We weren't in there but we read all about what this Professor guy was work'in on. I know I don't want to stick around for the up close 'n personal tour."

"We have to go back," Yuji said. "We have to go back and wipe them out. We have to kill all of them."

Captain Junker became very serious.

"Yuji, I understand why you're mad. I'll kill anyone to get Takashi safe. But he's safe now. Goin' back for vengeance…that just isn't right."

"Not vengeance," Yuji said. "If we don't stop Gorski, he's going to force nature to counter balance what he's doing even more. The only full nest I've seen in five years is right here, southwest of Elysium. It's there for one reason—to destroy the Professor's work.

"The Blue have failed to do that so far. But it's more than that. I have a feeling. I have a feeling that maybe nature is challenging us—challenging us to clean up our own house. Challenging us to renounce the type of horrific experiments the Professor is doing."

Surprisingly, Takashi told Captain Junker: "You're a nice man, Captain. I like you."

"Thank you, Takashi."

"But my dad is right. If you don't stop the Professor, things will get worse. They have my DNA now. He thinks he knows what he's doing, but he doesn't. You have to kill them all and destroy what they're creating. Before it's too late."

Yuji realized something. Something very important.

He told them all: "If that's not enough to convince you, consider this. Professor Ivan Gorski was responsible for the Blue apocalypse."

"What?" Marlene didn't know why Yuji would say that.

Yuji finished: "He has the blood of billions of people on his hands. He was responsible. Not nature. And he'll do it again if he has the chance."

Takashi took his father's hand: "Don't give him that chance again, daddy. Don't give him that chance."

****

NEXT FACTOR:

20. Götterdämmerung

Computer: "HOSTILE FORCE ENGAGED…ENEMY UNIT ESTIMATE UNAVAILABLE…PRIMARY DEFENSIVE EMPLACEMENTS OPERATING AT 85%…95%…110%…WARNING…PRIMARY DEFENSIVE EMPLACEMENT FAILURE IMMINENT…THE BLUE HAVE PENETRATED INTERNAL DEFENSIVE PERIMETER…"


	20. 20 Gotterdammerung

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

20. Götterdämmerung

_High towers, fair temples, goodly theaters,_

Strong walls, rich porches, princely palaces,

Fine streets, brave houses, sacred sepulchres,

Sure gates, sweet gardens, stately galleries—

All these, (Oh pity!) now are turn'd to dust

And overgrown with black Oblivion's rust

-- Spenser's _Fairy Queen_

---

A shudder—a tremor—went through the nest at the Whiteshell Nuclear Establishment.

The Blue inside knew it was time. It had all been leading to this.

They poured forth from the massive den by the dozens…then the hundreds…then by the _thousands._

The flying Blue were like a swarm of massive locusts, blocking out the sun as they moved. The ground forces were even more impressive; every imaginable type of Blue: Choppers, Tank Beetles, lumbering Man Eaters, massive Double Boats, Spring Worms, and even dozens of the gigantic armor-plated Land Whales.

The Earth trembled.

As they marched forward the nest began to collapse, its shaggy exoskeleton crumbling and falling to dust—discarded because it was no longer needed.

The final battle was to begin.

The end has arrived.

---

"Will you do this for me? Please?"

Marlene put a hand on Gunther's shoulder. She knew how desperately he wanted to be there, by her side. But someone had to stay behind and watch Takashi and they had one more pilot than they had shrikes anyhow.

Gunther bowed his head then nodded slowly, "Ya."

"Thank you."

He grabbed her wrist softly as she pulled away.

"Marks," he said to her. "You get 'em good, but you come back to your boy, ya?"

She stood on her tiptoes and planted a soft peck on his forehead.

The massive Gunther Gerhardt blushed.

"I protect Takashi with my life."

"I know."

The group was in full battle armor. Yuji and Captain Junker were going over a few last details of the plan.

"So you got in last time just pretending you were part of the mercs and they let you through, right?" Yuji asked.

"Yep."

"Of course, that plan would work again easily, right?" Yuji's sarcasm was quite evident.

Junker nodded.

Yuji finished: "So you think our prisoners will be willing to help us out?"

The old soldier smiled and answered: "I bet they're just dying to help us."

---

Gunther stood at the shuttle's cargo hatch and watched his comrades drive off into the forest. He could feel the electricity in the air. How many battles had he been a part of? Too many to count. This one seemed so…so final.

Something unfolded above Gunther. Something hung down from the roof of the shuttle. He didn't see it coming, but he felt the pink tentacle as it wrapped around his throat.

The last thing Gunther Gerhardt saw as his neck snapped was the wicked grin of a half-mutant Dr. Charles Gamble.

---

The mercenary lieutenant walked the perimeter wall, the afternoon sun—with a few clouds scattered about—hung far over head. He glanced around at his remaining forces—they had gone from so many to so few so fast.

It was unnerving.

He felt what the other men in the group felt; it was far past time to leave this place. This place had a stench about it…a stench of death.

Something emerged from the forest. He used his field glasses to see a red and white armored shrike and one of the hardtop utility vehicles approaching. These had been the vehicles used by the pursuit team.

The team he was sure had been wiped out.

The man operated his communications gear: "General Deeves…I've got one of our shrikes approaching and a vehicle. Looks like ours…but…"

"But," the General's voice crackled over the radio. "They've used this trick before. Let me tell you something, lieutenant, if the perimeter is breached again I'm going to string you up by your testicles and feed you to one of the Professor's failed experiments. Understand that?"

The man gulped. The frequency went dead.

The mercenary officer called his troops together above the eastern gate. The convoy approached.

He opened a radio channel: "Approaching vehicles, identify yourselves and provide security clearance codes."

The vehicles did not respond. Yet the officer could see a human pilot moving in the shrike and two more men in the front cabin of the car. They were waving.

_That's right—wave as if we're all part of one big happy family. I'm not falling for this one again._  
"Hostiles! I'm declaring them hostiles!"  
"What? Are you nutz, Billy?" One of the rank and file grunts spat.

"Shut up and blast them. I'm not falling for this again. Rocket guns, take out that shrike. Now damn it!"

The remaining members of the mercenary squad—all twelve of them—opened fire on the approaching vehicles.

Two rocket launchers fired projectiles. One hit the cockpit of the red and white modified Heavy Duty shrike. The pilot was instantly destroyed and the upper half of the shrike fell to pieces.

The second projectile hit the motor car right in the cabin. It rolled forward while its front end burned until it flipped off the road and came to a rest.

The mercenaries cheered their victory.

---

Pistol Jones' Grapple—modified to be handled by only one driver--held the legs of Marlene's Bullseye all while Yuji's Heavy Duty unit was parked off to the side and Captain Junker's own Heavy Duty kept watch nearby. Yuji himself was being held by the Bullseye's arms as he tried to get over the top of the Southern wall.

"A…little…further…" he groaned as he reached.

Finally he got a grip, hauled himself up, and was on top of the perimeter wall.

Far away—hundreds of yards, in fact—he saw the mercenary soldiers as they fired down on the approaching convoy.

Yuji didn't have time to watch the success of their diversion, yet he couldn't help be impressed at how simply removing all ammunition and disconnecting all radio frequencies had produced these results.

They had handed over the captured vehicles to their prisoners and told them to deliver a message to the Professor—the message was that Yuji and his troop were leaving and warned Gorski not to follow.

It was a lie, but it meant the merc prisoners would not suspect that they were the cheese in a big rat trap.

It obviously worked.

Yuji found the activation switch and opened the southern gate. It would take only a few minutes to get his team inside.

"Yuji, do you hear that?" It was Marlene's voice on the radio.

Yuji Kaido listened. It was the sound of an airship.

While the mercs on the eastern wall descended and exited the gate to go see their prize, an air ship floated over that eastern wall and parked on the airstrip.

Yuji's group watched in horror as Dr. Gamble exited that ship with Takashi in tow.

Gunther was dead—that is something they all realized at once—and this mission just became a lot harder.

Marlene seemed ready to reveal their position and rampage across the tarmac to intercept the doctor. Yuji stopped her.

"Wait," he reasoned. "They won't hurt him. Once we're done cleaning this place up he can walk out of there with the rest of us."

The team agreed. They moved toward the compound.

---

General Deeves was with Professor Gorski in the Great Hall. Dr. Gamble joined them with Takashi.

"Ah, welcome back, Takashi," Professor Gorski said while Deeves received a radio call from his troops stationed outside. "No problems, Doctor?"

"None," Gamble replied. He was in complete human form.

"No sign of Yuji and the rest, I assume?" Gorski led.

Takashi answered: "They are coming…they're going to make things right."

"Oh yes," Gorski seemed amused. "Your father is coming but—"

"Not just my father," Takashi announced. "They are all coming. It will be ending now."

Gorski went from amused to angry.

"You're right, child, it all ends now," Gorski held aloft a large syringe. It was filled with a liquid.

"The process is complete," Ivan announced. "Your DNA and my binding agent. This mixture will give me your genetic structure. It will combine with what I already have become and I will be like you Takashi—only stronger, older, and wiser."

Deeves slammed his fist into the table.

"Those fools!"

"What? Did Yuji Kaido get the better of your men once again?" Gorski teased.

"The idiots! They thought it was Yuji—never mind," Deeves regained his control.

"It matters not. Your new toy is ready, General," Gorski announced. "Why don't you go get it. You're probably going to need it when Yuji and Marlene get here."

Before the General could answer the calm voice of the computer defense net made an announcement.

"INCOMING BLUE ATTACK…ENEMY UNITS ESTIMATED AT 150…CORRECTION—ENEMY UNITS ESTIMATED AT 500… CORRECTION—ENEMY UNITS ESTIMATED AT 850…CORRECTION—"

The computer continued to make its corrections.

"…CORRECTION—UNABLE TO DETERMINE ENEMY UNIT STRENGTH…AUTOMATED DEFENSIVE EMPLACEMENTS ACTIVATED…"

Takashi was smiling.

"General?" Gorski questioned.

Deeves turned his radio on: "Lieutenant. Do you have visual on an incoming Blue attack? The computer defense grid seems to have developed an error."

The lieutenant's voice came over the radio. It was panicked and horrified.

"Oh my God…oh sweet Jesus…they're coming…I've never seen so many! I can't see the sky there's so many! There must be hundreds…thousands…help us! Help us!…"

The sound of the roar of Blue wings began to overpower the voice on the other end of the radio.

Deeves turned off his communicator.

"I told you," Takashi said in his child's voice. "They're coming for you, Professor. For all of you. Where will you hide?"

---

"Yuji, my scanners are picking up—"

"Yeah, I see it, too," Yuji told Marlene.

The scanners were filled with Blue approaching the base.

"It doesn't change anything," Yuji said. "And we're almost there."

---

The Elysians in the Community Dome—about a dozen of them--listened to their computer. They could hear the guns start to fire. They weren't sure how to react. Every Blue attack before had been beaten back. Surely this one would be, too?

"…INITIATING LOCK DOWN…SEALING OFF ALL EXTERIOR EXITS…PRIMARY DEFENSE EMPLACEMENTS AT 75%…"

The door to the Community Dome smashed open. Four armored shrikes came in, rolling forward in a half-kneeling position to fit under the hallway's roof. When they entered the dome there was plenty of headspace.

Everyone in the Community Dome—the Elysians and Yuji's team—knew what was to happen. There was no discussion. There was no hesitation.

Yuji and Marlene—the two who had seen the mutations in person—didn't bother to wait for them to change. They opened fire.

Immediately three of the scantly clad forms were cut to shreds.

Pistol Jones and Captain Junker were horrified to see Yuji and Marlene slaughter what looked like unarmed civilians. But in a moment they understood why.

The Elysians morphed into the sickening beasts they truly were. They grew their tentacles and pinchers and showed their cores. As they did most of them also increased their mass, nearly equaling the shrikes in size.

They hopped like gigantic bugs onto the walls and climbed high up the cupola, others slithered forward.

"What in the name of..?" Jones understood.

The shrikes began to fan out. They had taken the Elysians by tactical surprise, but the denizens of this warped world were well equipped for the battle.

One beast that had chopper mandibles growing from its shoulders clamped down on Marlene's cockpit cage. Jones swung the Grapple's heavy arms and knocked it flying, a blow that would usual kill a Blue. But this thing scampered to its feet and charged Jones, hissing all the way.

His main gun blasted it to shreds.

Captain Junker fired missiles from his Heavy Duty's shoulder-mounted launcher. The rounds slammed into the sides of the dome, knocking out debris and sending a cloud of dust through the air. Yet he missed his target—a serpent-like Elysian with eyes all along its spine. It moved too quickly.

Yuji growled and moved forward, smashing over sculptures and easels. His main gun blasted a hybrid with a Spring Worm's mouth where her chest should be. It quivered and shook as it died.

Marlene took careful aim and hit a spidery being as it jumped from the wall toward her. The first shot knocked it to the floor, but it regained its feet and charged. A burst from Yuji's gattling gun finished the job just as it lashed a pointed tongue at Marlene's cockpit.

Pistol Jones fired and fired. The sights he was seeing—the mutated bodies of half human/half blue...it had been one thing to hear Marlene and Yuji describe them…another to see it in person.

Now he had no doubt. He had no doubt that these things had to be exterminated. They just weren't meant to be. They were, as Yuji had said, abominations.

Yet seeing these things was pushing him too far. He was having trouble being disciplined. He was firing and firing but not aiming carefully.

The result was that he missed a large pink thing with a thousand tendrils as it rammed into the side of his vehicle. He crashed side ways.

It's disgusting round head squirmed in towards his cockpit and showed red fangs dripping with acid.

Pistol pulled his twin side arms and fired.

"AHHH…GET AWAY YOU FRIGGIN' MONSTER!"

It fell dead and slid off his cockpit as he brought his machine back to its feet.

More of the Elysians came pouring into the Community Dome. Another dozen, easy, all changing into their true selves as they rushed to join the battle.

In the background, behind the blaring of the shrike guns, over the horrid battle cries of the half-human monsters, was the automated voice of the defense computer offering a chilling account of the conflict that was happening on the outside of the compound.

"PRIMARY DEFENSIVE EMPLACEMENTS OPERATING AT 85%… HOSTILE FORCE HAS PENETRATED OUTER DEFENSIVE PERIMETER… UNABLE TO QUANTIFY HOSTILE STRENGTH…WARNING…PRIMARY DEFENSIVE EMPLACEMENTS OPERATING AT 100%…HOSTILE FORCE HAS PENETRATED OUTER DEFENSIVE PERIMETER…"

"Good God, how many of these beasts are there?!" Junker screamed as two leapt at him from the walls.

He fell one with a burst from his gattling gun but the second slammed hard into his machine. It stumbled and he could hear the thing ripping at power cords and other systems.

"A…little…help!"

Marlene took aim and fired a careful round. It hit the creature and knocked it free but it scampered away to fight again.

As Yuji fired and fired he felt his blood boil. It wasn't quite like being in the Double Edge, but it was close. He could feel his purpose coming to the forefront again. He could feel his duty and it wasn't coming from artificial stimulation.

BAM!

Yuji obliterated a flying worm with a woman's head as it spat acid at his cockpit. That acid splattered against the interior console and fried his scanners. He hoped that was all.

Pistol Jones' unit was running hot. Marlene was so busy dodging leaping mutations that she was having difficulty finding targets. Captain Junker's mech had taken damage on the right side.

They had killed at least a dozen of the things, yet the battle was turning against them.

Things were about to get worse.

---

The door to the chamber stood twenty feet tall. It raised.

General Deeves looked at his final payment. Its massive red form pulsated in the darkness of the chamber.

He moved forward.

_Time to take this baby for a test drive._

---

Yuji wasted one of the Elysians that had grown massive claws with fly-like eyes. It spat and sputtered in death convulsions as he brought his shrikes' leg down on its torso for good measure.

As he did he spotted Professor Gorski watching from the Great Hall. The man was standing there by the open bulkhead, observing the battle.

Takashi was next to him.

Gorski led Takashi out of view and back into the Great Hall.

"Marlene! I see Takashi!"

Marlene Angel answered as she fired two shots wide of a fat beetle thing that was spitting pellets in the same manner that shrikes fired bullets. Some of them pelted her mech's arm but failed to penetrate any major systems.

"Go get him, Yuji. We can handle this here…at least for now…"

None of them were sure of that. Especially Junker who had two beasties crawling on his back tearing into systems.

Marlene moved to help the Captain while speaking: "Just hurry back."

Yuji accelerated toward the archway that separated the two domes.

---

"GUN TURRET NUMBER FOUR NOW AT CRITICAL AMMUNITION SHORTAGE…DEFENSIVE PERIMETER BREECHED IN SECTOR D…PRIMARY DEFENSIVE EMPLACEMENTS NOW OPERATING AT 110%…WARNING…DEFENSIVE EMPLACEMENT FAILURE IMMENINENT..."

The battle on the outside of the compound was a rout. The Blue were dropping from the millions of rounds fired, but for every Blue that fell a hundred more took its place.

A Land Whale battered down the western gate…a Spring Worm used its massive tail like a coil and literally sprung itself up and onto the roof of one of the main buildings. There it crushed a turret.

Flying Blue tore away another emplacement while Tank Beetles hammered at the main entrance to the compound.

They kept coming…and coming…

---

Yuji rolled into the Great Hall. It appeared empty save for Professor Gorski and Takashi who were standing by the raised head table. Gorski was looking at Yuji's mech and smiling. He held a gun to Takashi.

Yuji stopped. He realized too late that it was an ambush.

Gamble had been hiding above the doorway. His mutated form dropped onto the shrike. His tentacles reached in and pulled Yuji out, throwing him to the floor.

Gamble then pounded the shrike's control board until it fizzled, flamed, then went dead. The mutant then pushed against the mecha and knocked its dead frame over.

"Welcome, Yuji."

The sounds of the fight in the adjacent Community Dome played as background as did the computer's voice: "WARNING…INTERNAL PERIMETER BREECHED IN MULTIPLE LOCATIONS…EVACUATION RECOMMENDED…"

"It ends here, now, today, Professor," Yuji explained as he strolled over to the two with Dr. Gamble lumbering along beside him.

"Yes, yes it does," Gorski held the syringe aloft.

"This," he explained. "Is the completion of a life time of work. With Takashi's DNA and my binding agent I will complete my own personal evolution. I will be a God among men. There will be no stopping me and what I can accomplish."

Takashi spoke: "You don't want to do that, Professor."

Gorski injected half the contents of the syringe into his arm.

---

The battle had become chaotic.

Junker, his unit half burning and his ammunition running low, moved quickly across the perimeter of the Community Dome. His gattling gun went dry as it peppered a slimy blob thing with two cores and a patch of blonde hair.

Marlene killed another creature and then another.

Pistol Jones, screaming and on the verge of insanity, avoided a massive tongue flicked at him by what looked like a feathered praying mantis.

Junker was watching to his left so intently that he didn't notice the large chamber open to his right. Some sort of freight access way. It brought a new player to the room.

Junker saw movement and turned in time to see a massive appendage grasp his unit's cockpit cage, hoist him high, and throw him like a rag doll across the dome.

The shrike landed and slid into the wall where it crumpled into a useless hulk.

"Captain!?" Marlene called.

She heard nothing in response. But she wasn't listening anyway…she was looking at the new horror that had entered the fray.

At first she thought it was a massive mutation: pulsating red flesh with creamy veins running everywhere. Four huge, thick tree-trunk like appendages. Massive shoulders with a series of eye-like sockets.

In the center of it all was what Marlene first thought was a mouth. But it wasn't. It was a cockpit. Inside that cockpit was General Deeves. Two sickly feelers came from the thing and were attached to his skull.

Marlene realized…this was some sort of biological shrike made from the genetics of the Blue. Perhaps even alive with Deeves at its controls.

The biological monstrosity took a heavy step into the room. The ground shook. It towered above the mechas.

The remaining Elysians—about half a dozen—took up positions on its flank.

"Now," Deeves announced. "I will kill you all."

**__**

NEXT FACTOR:

21. Evolution

Captain Junker: "Oh the poor kid…to come all this way, after all we've been through…to come this far and then, here at the end, for Takashi to have to see one of his parents killed like that…it just doesn't seem right…it just doesn't seem fair."


	21. 21 Evolution

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

** **

21. Evolution

"I can…I can feel it changing me…" the Professor had a huge satisfied grin on his face as he held his arms aloft, flexing them. A subtle ripple began to flow across the surface of his skin.

The computer system warned: "WARNING…THE BLUE HAVE ENTERED THE COMPOUND…GUN TURRET FOUR REPORTS ORDINANCE DEPLETION…GUN TURRET SEVEN REPORTS CRITICAL FAILURE…INTERNAL PERIMETER BREACHED…EVACUATION RECOMMENDED."

"They're coming, Professor," Takashi teased.

The Professor ignored him and continued to gloat: "It matters not. By the time the Blue get here my transformation will be complete. I will have defeated evo—evo—" the Professor stuttered as pain shot through his frame. He crumpled to one knee. His skin continued to ripple.

He was changing.

Yuji sneered. The anger burst inside of him. He clenched his fists and shook one at Gorski as Yuji revealed the truth—the truth that even the Professor had not realized.

"You did nothing! You defeated nothing! When you meddled with the b-cells two decades ago you didn't defeat anything—you unleashed the Blue upon mankind! It was all your fault!"

Dr. Gamble held a gun. He pointed it at Yuji but his attention focused on Gorski's transformation. A transformation that was becoming painful.

"No," Gorski protested through clenched teeth. "I discovered the Earth's plan…I outsmarted nature…the Blue were coming anyway before my…arrghh…before my tests."

"No! No they weren't! The Blue weren't part of evolution's plan! The b-cells weren't designed to destroy man; they were designed to save mankind!

"If you hadn't interfered, if you hadn't snatched us Sleepers away from the population we would have had our children back then! You arrogant bastard—you're all arrogant bastards!—when will you realize that _man is a part of nature_! We were meant to share this planet with the rest of nature! We are critical to this planet's survival!"

Gamble interjected: "Even Seno Miyagi knew that the Blue were sent to punish us for our overpopulation and pollution. The Blue would've been born anyhow, even without the lab experi—"

"No! You fool! Man _was_ overpopulating the Earth…we _were_ polluting…so _nature sent the cure!_ Nature sent the b-cells so that man could evolve beyond our dependence on technology and industry. You said it yourself, Ivan, Takashi has incredible regenerative powers! His mind and body are more in tune with the world. His generation will not need as much industry, as much technology, as many _things_ because they will live as one with nature!"

Something tried to push through Gorski's shoulder. It wasn't quite ready. It wasn't quite ready to come out.

Yuji would not let up. He cursed the Professor and all his breed as he offered the final revelations.

"You ripped apart the genome and used your binding agent with lab animals and you created the first Blue. And what happened, Professor? Did you purposely let it out into the environment to see what would happen? Just as you left the Double Edge for me and left the Blue at the village—an experiment to see what would happen?!"

"I never thought…" Gorski admitted. "I never thought they would…uh…multiple so…arrr…fast."

"No! You don't think! Just like the scientists who tested the first A-bomb knew there was a small chance it could start a chain reaction that would destroy the world you didn't care! You needed to know! You fed your arrogance and played God.

"And what happened? Nature slapped you into place! It was a backlash, Professor. A backlash for trying to play God with the building blocks of life. A punishment for interrupting evolution.

"If you had let it be then none of this would have happened. The blood of billions of souls is _ON YOUR HANDS!_  
"If you had not interfered the Sleepers would have had children who would be like Takashi. A whole generation of people living better and in harmony with the world. It would've been paradise! And you stole that from mankind!"

Takashi offered: "And now the Blue are coming for you, Professor."

"Yes," Yuji said. "The only remaining nest in all the world…after I stepped into the light it signaled nature that evolution could begin anew. But a nest remained here to destroy you."

Gorski's neck began to pulsate. His arms bloated…his stomach churned as something tried to reveal itself.

"No…" the Professor said. "I have…aaaahhh…I have finally…urr…won. I have…I have de—ah—defeated nature…outsmarted…urrrrrr…outsmarted it…"

"No," Takashi said calmly. "You have only produced a backlash again. My body is not meant for you, Professor. You should have listened to my daddy…he's smarter than you."

"Wh—what is happening…to me?!"

---

Marlene had never seen anything like it. A massive, living shrike based on the Blue but obviously enhanced by Professor Gorski's technology.

In the tight, slimy cockpit was General Deeves.

Marlene and Pistol Jones opened fire. They were the only two shrikes still standing. The remaining Elysians began crawling along the walls as if to flank Marlene and Pistol.

The heavy rounds hit the Bio-Shrike but they absorbed into its skin. The explosions muffled and suppressed by flesh. The armor seemingly swallowed the rounds.

"What is this friggin' thing!?" Pistol screamed and fired more and more shots.

The Bio-Shrike raised one of hits massive appendages and a slick stream of acid fired across the room. Marlene turned her ride just in time—the liquid missed and burned into a wall behind her.

Pistol Jones moved in to engage at close range. He killed one of the Elysians—the one that looked like a feathered Praying Mantis—with a heavy blow from his modified Grapple's arms.

"I'll grab this godforsaken thing Marlene…you blast it…"

"No! Pistol! No!"

Deeves turned the beast on Jones. Before the Grapple was able to grab him, Deeves latched onto Jones' ride. The General's laughter echoed through the chamber.

The Bio-Shrike's massive biceps crunched the Grapple. The hydraulics of the man made machine screamed as the Grapple's arms bent in. Then the frame began to crush under the massive power.

Marlene fired round after round. She aimed for the cockpit but Deeves was so snug inside that she could not hit him. Her bullets were useless.

"AAAAHHHHH…" came Jones' scream as the frame of his mech was warped and collapsed around him. He was nearly crushed to death.

The Bio-Shrike threw the shattered mecha to the ground. Two of the monstrous Elysian mutants dug their claws and snouts into the Grapple's bent and broken cockpit, ripping away whatever was left of Pistol Jones' life.

Deeves swung his beast around toward Marlene.

"And now you."

Marlene didn't know what else to do. She opened fire and retreated from the lumbering Bio-Shrike and the Elysians.

Deeves' machine fired out a barrage of smaller tendrils. They grasped at Marlene's Bullseye and stopped it from running. It bore down on her.

"No…damn it…no!" She cried out.

The creatures were all around her machine. Her death was just seconds away.

The General's Bio Shrike pulled her close.

"I think I'll have my pet eat you alive…how's that?"

A gaping mouth opened in the surface of the beastly weapon. Pulsating, sick, filled with saliva and bloody gums. It aimed to suck her from the cockpit.

A voice came over Marlene's tactical headset.

"N'uff of this bull shit!"

It was Captain William Junker.

He was holding a Blue Call: one of the silver canisters that Raul (Estes' Blue expert) had made to lure Blue. The device that tended to drive the Blue into a crazed frenzy.

The Captain, bloodied and hurt but far from beaten, had crawled out from the wreckage of his destroyed shrike. He held the device aloft and turned it on to full power.

He tossed it at the evil mouth of General Deeves' Hell-spawned mecha.

The device drove the half-blue mutations and the Bio-Shrike insane. They went into convulsions. Screams—inhuman shrieks-echoed through the Community Dome.

The Bio-Shrike staggered backward and dropped Marlene Angel's machine.

"What is this? WHAT IS THIS!?" Deeves was confused and afraid. His beast was going crazy.

And he was stuck inside of it.

The thing began to consume its human pilot in its fit of insanity. The cockpit itself became like a mouth, chewing and crushing Deeves. The General died a fittingly painful and horrid death.

The remaining Elysians lost all control. They staggered about clutching their heads as if they could block out the torturous signal.

Then the main entranceway bashed open.

The Blue flooded in.

"INTERNAL SECURITY PERIMETER BREACHED IN COMMUNITY DOME…ALL CITIZENS ARE ENCOURAGED TO EVACUATE…"

The Blue poured in like water filling a container. Nature's fury rushed toward the Elysians as Marlene and Captain Junker bid a hasty retreat to the Great Hall.

---

Professor Gorski's body exploded out and up—he gained tremendous amounts of mass as his final transformation completed.

Was he Blue? Was he something new? Yuji and Dr. Gamble did not know. Perhaps Takashi did—he seemed to know more than his father could have ever guessed. He seemed in tune with what was going on.

In any case, Gorski became a giant bloody ball of eyes and sharp tendrils and mandibles. A head--if you could call it that—sat on top almost like a gory flower: wretched flesh and pulsing veins surrounding a massive orifice full of razor-teeth.

It towered above the humans.

Marlene road into the Great Hall in her armored shrike.

Captain Junker limped in behind her carrying an assault rifle. He went immediately to the door controls and began sealing the bulkhead—sealing the link between the Great Hall and the Community Dome where the swarm of Blue was eating the Elysians and Deeves' crazed Bio-Shrike.

Junker let loose a burst of rounds stopping a Chopper as it tried to follow him. The bulkhead closed but almost immediately the Blue began pounding on it.

They were going to get through. It was only a matter of time.

Gamble stared at his mentor's new form and cried out: "You are marvelous, Master! Now give me the rest of the formula!"

The new Professor Gorski reached down with his massive round head and chomped Dr. Gamble in two.

Takashi said: "It's not the Professor anymore. It's nothing at all."

Yuji told his son, "C'mon, Takashi, run for it!"

But the beast would not allow the escape.

Marlene moved as fast as she could across the Great Hall, but she wasn't fast enough. She saw it all happen.

The creature shot one of its thin but long tendrils at Yuji. It speared her lover straight through the gut and poked out on the other side.

"NO! YUJI! NO!"

She fired rounds at the creature as she closed in fast. Takashi ran away to the side, temporarily out of the thing's reach.

Yuji stood there for a moment, standing still in disbelief.

The monster withdrew its horrid appendage. Yuji staggered then slumped to the floor on his back. A massive amount of blood began to spill from the hole in his body.

The monster turned to greet Marlene's shrike. Her shots had no effect so she was left with one option.

She rammed it, even though it was much larger than her vehicle.

Her momentum pushed the creature backwards were it slammed against the wall and the closed door that led to the laboratories and dormitory sections of the compound.

She kept the throttle at full power even though there was no where left to go.

Captain Junker moved fast enough to get a hold of Takashi and pull him as far away from the battle as possible. They both moved toward Yuji—yet Captain Junker knew from what he had seen…he knew…

Smaller tentacles of the abomination began to slide along her shrike trying to pull it free. It's hideous circular jaws snapped toward the cockpit, gripping metal safety bars and wrenching them away.

Marlene acted quickly. She punched up the self-destruct sequence on the armor unit. Two cards popped out on either side of the cockpit. She pressed the buttons in the right sequence, opened the rear exit of the vehicle, and fell out.

Marlene Angel ran away from her doomed Bullseye.

"Get down! Get DOWN!"

The Captain pushed Takashi to the floor and shielded the boy with his own body. Marlene dove under one of the stone benches.

The monster that had been Gorski was just about to free itself…

The shrike exploded. As it shattered into a thousand pieces so did the monstrosity. Blood, gore, metal and worse flew across the dome.

Marlene stood and saw a smoking, ruined pile of metal and flesh where her vehicle and the Professor's final creation had been.

She staggered across the floor. First she noted that Takashi was safe. Then she heard the Blue slamming against the bulkhead.

Then she looked at Yuji, motionless on the floor in front of the head table.

As she closed toward her husband she walked slower, wanting to delay…

"Yu—Yuji?"  
Marlene kneeled next to him, then took his head in her arms and cuddled him on her lap.

"Mar—Marlene…" Yuji gasped. The hole in his body was large; his internal organs had to have been pulverized…so much blood.

"I'm here, honey. I'm here," she sniffled but tried to be brave.

"Takashi? Is he…safe?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Marlene…I never…I never told you…" he coughed blood. "Do you know when…when I first fell in…in love with you?"

"Yuji…"

"…It was…the first time…the first time I saw you…when you saved me in the sleeper f—facility…I didn't realize it then…but I know it now…from the beginning…"

She softly kissed his forehead.

"Not now…not after all this," she pleaded.

"It's okay…Marlene…no regrets. I lost twenty years when I slept…but it was worth it…"

He cringed in pain. She could feel his body growing cold and numb.

Yuji finished: "I love you, Marlene…for everything you are…and everything you hope to be."

In Marlene Angel's arms, Yuji Kaido died.

**__**

FINAL FACTOR:

22. Nuovo Inizio

Marlene: "The room is filling with Blue…there's no escape route left…it all ends here…Takashi, don't watch--look away."


	22. 22 Nuovo Inizio

BLUE GENDER

"Children of the Blue"

****

22. Nuovo Inizio

Even if the days,

When I smiled a lot,

Should turn out,

To be nothing but a lovely dream,

That would be alright with me,

If that's all it means…

--"Love Taught Me"

---

The storm of Blue covered the wasteland plains for as far as the eye could see.

They had battered down the walls of Elysium. The gun turrets were all either smashed or had fallen silent when their ammunition had run dry.

The torn and shredded bodies of the bastard creations of Professor Gorski littered the Community Dome. All of the self-proclaimed "Children of the Blue" had met their fate either at the hands of Yuji's followers or under the crushing weight of nature's fiercest fury, the Blue.

The massive leg of a Double Boat crunched the silver canister better known as a "Blue Call." The mimicked biomagnetic signal emanating from the invention was silenced.

One door remained…

---

Marlene held on to Yuji, despite the fact that his pulse was gone and no breath drew from his still body. The reality of it—the _finality _of it—was difficult to accept.

Captain Junker held an assault rifle.

He shook his head in sadness. Yet he knew to save some of the sadness for his own soul because the only other exit out of the Great Hall was now completely sealed behind a pile of molten shrike and still-steaming gore from Gorski's final mutation.

There were no more exits. No more grand escapes.

The bulkhead buckled as the Blue in the Community Dome rammed against it. A few more heavy strokes and it would fall.

Marlene's watery eyes stayed locked on Yuji's closed lids as she spoke to her son: "Takashi…you…need…to go hide…maybe the Blue won't—Takashi?"

She looked up. Her son was not where he had been standing. She glanced around and finally spied him. He was climbing down from the head table and returning in their direction.

He was holding something.

WHAM!

Junker could see the tip of a Chopper mandible cutting through the upper edge of the door.

"Captain Junker," Takashi stood alongside the older gentleman. "Could you please put this into my daddy please?"  
The Captain looked closer. The boy was holding a syringe that was half full of some liquid.

Marlene didn't know what to say.

"Takashi," she stumbled. "Your father is dead…there's nothing we can—"

"What is that?" Junker wanted to know of the syringe.

The boy answered, plainly: "It's me. It's Eb-o-lew-shun"

Marlene thought she could explain: "That's Gorski's binding agent with your DNA, isn't that so? That's what he just injected himself with," she spat the words, "that's what turned him into a bigger monster than before…"

Takashi urged: "Captain Junker, please put this in my daddy. There's not much time."

Marlene wasn't sure if he meant they didn't have much time until the Blue came in…or something else.

"That turned the Professor into a monster," Marlene stated.

Takashi interrupted her: "He wasn't daddy. Please," he had a look on his face that said _why are you grown ups being so stupid?_

The Captain took the syringe and looked to Marlene for guidance. She sniffled and nodded her head.

The bulkhead bent inward. Not quite a big enough hole for the Blue to crawl through, but any second now…

Captain Junker stuck the syringe into Yuji's dead arm and emptied the contents.

Nothing happened.

At first.

Marlene wasn't sure what she was seeing. Yuji's skin—the skin around the hole in his gut—began to flutter. Then it…it reached out. Strands…reaching across the wound toward the other side.

Her mind returned to when they had first arrived at the complex. When they had seen the Professor send a Blue into Takashi's playroom. On their way down to see Takashi, the Professor had said something…

"_Your son has a physical constitution like no other…when he hits adolescence his genes will unleash incredible regenerative powers…_ _Inside, outside—against illness and even significant physical injury…_ _That alone will reduce his dependence on medical science."_

The blood that had poured from Yuji's body did not retreat—it had already been spilled. But the wound began to heal itself.

The skin from all sides latched and began weaving together like a seamstress sewing a tear in a shirt. Marlene reached underneath and felt the exit wound on Yuji's back. It too was mending.

"What—what is this?" Marlene stammered. "This turned Gorski into a—"

WHAM!

The bulkhead was nearly toppled.

"I didn't come from _him,"_ Takashi pointed out, as if he were the adult explaining something so simple to the child. "He wasn't the right fit."

Yuji did not move. He had no pulse. He was not breathing.

Marlene pushed away the blood on top of the wound and saw…skin. As if there had never been a wound. Ever.

"Well I'll be damned," was all Captain Junker could say.

"Mommy," Takashi said. "You have to bring daddy back."

She gaped at her son.

Takashi looked frustrated and told her: "Help him breath, mommy."

It took Marlene a moment but she understood. She leaned over and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

In…out…in…out…

Yuji coughed blood.

He _coughed._

His chest heaved. His eyes shot open. He cried out in pain and held his gut.

"Yuji? Yuji!" Marlene hugged him.

"Oh man," he said. He was too weak to do more than sit up. "What…what happened?"

The bulkhead burst inward and crumpled to the floor. The Blue began to flood in like a torrent of water through a burst dam.

Captain Junker said: "Well, at least I lived long enough to see a miracle."

Marlene eyed the closing enemy then squeezed Yuji's head.

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry that you came back to this…"

Yuji was in no shape to comprehend what was going on. It was enough for him to understand that he was alive, but he was alive with a pain in his belly and a fuzzy head.

The ground shook as the Blue filled the Great Hall from wall to wall and advanced toward the survivors.

Captain Junker momentarily raised his rifle. He had a full clip. But he might as well have had no ammunition at all.

He looked at the weapon and thought: _I've lived my life with one of these in my hands. I think I'd like to die without it._

He tossed the rifle aside.

Marlene kissed Yuji on the head as she said: "Takashi…don't watch…look away…look—"

The shaking of the ground stopped.

Marlene saw that Takashi was no longer nearby. She turned and saw where her son had gone.

The boy was standing a few feet closer to the line of Blue, his back to Marlene and Junker. That approaching line had stopped…right in front of him.

The room was full of hundreds of mankind's most horrid enemy…but they were standing still. And there was a silence in that room that was thunderous.

That silence was broken by a child's giggle.

Takashi turned to face his mother. He had an amused smile on his face.

He told her: "They think _we're_ weird looking…isn't that funny?"  
Yuji was holding his head. He was alive but still trying to gain his senses.

Captain Junker didn't know what to think or do so he did nothing at all. He watched.

Marlene started, "Takashi..?"

The boy returned his attention to the line of Blue but spoke to the humans in the room.

"They'll be going now. They're all finished."

Then the Blue did just that. They turned about and returned in the direction they had come. They marched out orderly and quickly.

As they left, Takashi Kaido waved goodbye.

---

Captain Junker and Marlene finished the job. It was not a pleasant job, but it was a job they had to do. They were compelled to do.

Outside of the eastern gate to the redoubt stood four crosses made of wood. Those crosses had names inscribed on them.

Pistol Jones, Gunther Gerhardt, Darren Moss and—fittingly next to Darren—Denise Karr.

The first two memorials stood above mounds of unearthed dirt where they had placed the remains. The other two were above undisturbed soil.

Takashi and Yuji appeared through the smashed-open gate. Yuji was walking with a crutch they had found in the medical center. His legs were fine but the pain in the mid section of his body was acute. The crutch helped take away some of the weight and lessen the ache.

He was going to recover fully…it was just going to take some time.

"Mommy, what are those? What are you doing?"

Marlene realized that even though Takashi had taught them so much about the future of humankind that they—his parents—had much yet to teach him.

"We're saying goodbye," Marlene told her son. "Each cross is for the friends we lost while we were trying to come save you."

Yuji chimed in: "These people didn't need to come. They wanted to, because they cared about you. They wanted to help."

Marlene added: "They were part of our family."

The adults couldn't help but remember there were many more crosses back at the village, including one over Bo Fuentes.

Takashi stepped forward toward the markers and said, "Thank you."

Then he turned away.

"They were good people," Captain Junker offered. "This is going to be hard when we get back. Pistol had kids, you know."

Marlene nodded.

Captain Junker put a gentle hand on top of Pistol Jones' cross and spoke: "You weren't so bad, for an Arkansas boy."

Most of the group walked away and returned to the inside of the walls.

Marlene removed her battle-scarred green upper body armor. She hoped she would never need it again.

She stepped toward Gunther's marker, then placed the gear against the base of that cross.

"For you, Gunther. We'll never forget. _I_ will never forget."

---

The launch catapult and most of the vehicles had been completely wrecked: the Blue had come to the redoubt with the intent of total destruction and, for all purposes, had done just that.

Yet Captain Junker found an air ship that was in workable condition. The group then loaded it with as many supplies as they could take and topped off the fuel tanks until they were virtually overfilling.

They slept in that transport over night then, at dawn the next morning, the air ship gently lifted from the tarmac and climbed high into a beautiful day's sky.

Captain Junker was at the controls. The other three emerged from the cargo hold area and walked along the passenger aisle.

Marlene stopped then sat in one of the seats near the rear. Her two boys noticed her absence and returned to her. Yuji kneeled in the center aisle at her feet (he was feeling much better and didn't need the crutch).

Marlene did not seem happy.

"What is it? What is it Marlene?"

She didn't want to speak but Yuji's questioning face compelled her.

Marlene Angel told her husband: "It's just that…all this is over now…and the only thing…the only thing I learned is that I'm really good at being a soldier and killing. I'm afraid of that part of me that's inside…the brutality. It's like I have another person in me. Like you and the b-cells."

Yuji shook his head.

"You're wrong," he told her, calmly. "It wasn't by accident that you and I met, Marlene. Takashi comes from us—both of us. He's more than the b-cells combining with human genes…he's _my_ b-cells with _you_."

"Yuji?"  
"I've seen your strength and your will to fight. But I've also seen your heart and your compassion," Yuji was in awe of her as he spoke. "That's what you've given to our son, Marlene. You aren't two people; you're one complete person who can do so much. And you were a part of the will of the Earth, too. It had to be you. Only you. No one else. You are the mother of the next evolution of man."

He paused to let that sink in, then told her: "And that's why I love you so much. That's why I've always loved you…from the beginning."

They kissed gently and then their son threw his arms around them both.

A voice came from the front of the transport.

"Um…I hate to break things up back there," Captain Junker said. "Especially to tell you something you already know…"

Yuji led the family forward, toward the control panel and pilots' seats.

Junker completed his thought: "…we don't have anywhere near enough fuel to get all the way back to the village."

Yuji looked beyond the windshield at the journey ahead.

He told the old soldier, "That's okay, Cap. We'll get there eventually. Besides, it's a big world out there…"

Marlene sat in the co-pilot's seat. Takashi jumped onto her lap for a better view.

Marlene Angel added, "And it's about time we saw more of it."

Captain Junker nodded and held a steady course.

Yuji Kaido knelt alongside the co-pilot's seat and threw an arm around his wife and son. Together they gazed with anticipation toward the heavens stretched before them.

The air ship sailed for the horizon over peaceful clouds and under a clear sky of blue.

THE END

May 25, 2004


End file.
